[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., USA, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 29


FLORIDA:

Florida prepares for 1st execution since foul up


Florida's new procedure for lethal injections could be tested Tuesday when
executioners strap down a condemned inmate for the 1st time since a
botched execution.

Mark Dean Schwab, 39, is scheduled to die exactly 16 years after he was
sentenced in the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Junny
Rios-Martinez.

Florida officials say they have resolved problems with the December 2006
execution of Angel Diaz when needles were accidentally pushed through his
veins, causing the lethal chemicals to go into his muscles instead,
delaying his death for 34 minutes - twice as long as normal. Some experts
said that would cause intense pain.

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush stopped all executions after Diaz was killed, but
Florida and other states were also held up as they waited for the U.S.
Supreme Court to rule the three-drug method of lethal injection used by
Kentucky was constitutional. 34 other states, including Florida, use a
similar method.

Florida's new procedure requires the warden to make sure the inmate is
unconscious following the injection of the first chemical, sodium
pentothal. Then the executioner will inject pancuronium bromide to
paralyze his muscles and potassium chloride to stop his heart. It also
requires people with medical training to be involved in the process.

Schwab and his attorneys aren't so sure the problems are fixed. An
analysis done for Schwab's lawyers showed that nine of the 30 mock
executions performed by Florida's Department of Corrections between
September 2007 and May were failures, said one of his state-paid
attorneys, Mark Gruber.

The corrections department said its mock exercises have included
preparation for potential problems such as a combative inmate, the
incapacity of an execution team member, power failure and finding a vein.

"Training for the unexpected is not a failed mock execution," said Gretl
Plessinger, a corrections department spokeswoman. "We're planning for
contingencies."

Schwab's legal options are running out. On Friday, the Florida Supreme
Court rejected his latest appeal claiming the new procedure still carries
the risk of causing intense pain and suffering.

The state has argued successfully in several courts that the procedure
meets all constitutional tests against cruel and unusual punishment and
that Schwab cannot raise the issue again.

Schwab's attorneys did not return calls after the appeal was rejected
Friday, but they are expected to next turn to the federal courts. The U.S.
Supreme Court has allowed eight lethal injections to continue since
upholding the Kentucky case.

That ruling raised a lot of questions, said D. Todd Doss, an attorney in
northern Florida who has handled several death penalty cases but isn't
involved in Schwab's appeals.

"I didn't think it cleared the legal landscape," Doss said, because it did
not determine whether there was a substantial risk that Schwab would
experience intense pain and suffering.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Kenneth S. Nunnelley said Schwab's
claims in 2 previous challenges to lethal injection have also been
rejected. "He does not get another bite at the apple," he said.

Family of Schwab's victim are counting down the days to execution with a
timer on a Web site devoted to the boy. They've been through years of
appeals, and they decided not to comment on the latest.

"The roller coaster has begun, and we don't want to get on," Vickie
Rios-Martinez, Junny's mother, said recently.

Schwab raped and killed Junny a month after he was released early from a
prison sentence he got for raping a 13-year-old boy, who was from Cocoa, a
small town on the Atlantic coast of Florida.

Schwab got close to the boy and his family by posing as a reporter who
promised to help the boy with his dream of becoming a professional surfer.

On the day of the rape and murder, Schwab called the boy's school posing
as his father, then picked him up there.

The case prompted Florida's Junny Rios-Martinez Act of 1992, which
prohibits sex offenders from early release from prison or getting credit
for good behavior.

"The state is the one who is the biggest victimizer. They let him out.
They knew who he was," the boy's mother told The Associated Press in
November.

Schwab's execution is to be held at the state's death chamber in Starke,
which is about 40 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

On the Net: Junny Rios-Martinez's family MySpace page:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseactionuser.viewprofile&friendid21

(source: Associated Press)

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

6 of 64 Fla. inmates executed were child killers


6 of the 64 inmates executed by Florida raped and killed children,
although others have been put to death for slaying children.

The most notable was serial killer Ted Bundy, who was executed in the
electric chair in 1989 for the 1978 rape and murder of 12-year-old
Kimberly Leach of Lake City. The confessed killer of 30 women was also on
death row for the slayings of 2 Chi Omega sorority sisters in Tallahassee
in 1978.

The others included three executed in 1984: Arthur F. Goode III, executed
for killing 9-year-old Jason Verdow of Cape Coral in 1976; Johnny Paul
Witt for killing, sexually abusing and mutilating Jonathan Mark Kushner,
the 11-year-old son of a University of South Florida professor in 1973;
and Aubry Dennis Adams Jr., who was executed for the Jan. 23, 1978, murder
of Trisa Gail Thornley, a 3rd-grader last seen on her way home from
school.

Phillip A. Atkins, 40, was electrocuted Dec. 5, 1995, for the murder and
rape of 6-year-old Antonio Castillo in Lakeland and Rigoberto
Sanchez-Velasco, 43, died of lethal injection on Oct. 2, 2002, after
dropping appeals from his conviction in the December 1986 rape-slaying of
11-year-old Katixa "Kathy" Ecenarro in Hialeah. Sanchez-Velasco also
killed two fellow inmates while on death row.

(source for both: Associated Press)






USA:

THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE U.S.----Civilized standards


'Death to the child rapist" is a blood-curdling call that has long since
lost its place in nearly all civilized societies. So while it is
heartening that the United States Supreme Court barred Louisiana and 5
other states from executing convicted child rapists, it's chilling that
four of the nine judges would have allowed the practice, and disturbing
that the 2 major presidential candidates, John McCain of the Republicans
and Barack Obama of the Democrats, criticized the ruling.

One vote away from institutionalizing the blood lust of the mob gives
little comfort, even though this is an exceptionally horrific and odious
crime. Between 1930 and 1964, 455 people in the United States were put to
death by the state for rapes of adults or children. Apparently none of the
executed was a white man who raped a black woman or child, the NAACP said
in its brief. There were 5,700 rapes of children reported in the United
States in 2005, compared to 3,400 murders, and while aggravating factors
are necessary before a murderer is executed, it's possible that most child
rapists would be put to death. Death for child rapists would turn the
state into a busy killing machine.

There are several major problems of a practical nature: first, the
potential for wrongful executions, given unreliable or induced testimony
from children. (In the Louisiana case before the court, an 8-year-old girl
initially blamed 2 neighbourhood children, under pressure from her
stepfather, who was ultimately convicted.) Second, the child victims would
often have been obliged to testify, in effect to bring about the death of
a criminal who might also be a close relative. As the judges pointed out,
children are too young to make such a moral choice. Third, the death
penalty would remove the rapist's incentive not to kill his victim. And
fourth, rape within families would be even less likely to be reported than
it is now.

While the judges in the majority said the national consensus was against
death for child rapists - no one has been executed for rape since 1964 -
they were also bold enough to directly address why executing child rapists
is wrong. "The court's own judgment should be brought to bear." Punishment
must "be exercised within the limits of civilized standards." There is the
nub of it. If the consensus supports barbarism, is that enough to make
barbarism lawful? To the judges in the minority, who include President
George W. Bush's 2 appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Samuel Alito, civilized standards are what the states say they are. But to
the majority, "When the law punishes by death, it risks its own sudden
descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to
decency and restraint." By 1 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that
descent. It was a disturbingly close call that augurs poorly for the
continued dismantling of the death penalty.

(source: Toronto Globe and Mail, June 27)

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

Supreme Court blocs rarely wavered


The ideological divide was so evident this term that outcomes in most
major cases could be nearly predicted. Once again, Justice Kennedy often
cast the deciding vote in 5-4 decisions.

The Supreme Court ended its annual term last week just where it began:
evenly divided between conservative and liberal blocs of four justices,
with the deciding votes cast by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

And this year, unlike last, the outcomes of cases seemed evenly split as
well. Both liberal and conservative sides won major victories countered by
stinging defeats.

The near-even split also carries an election-year message for voters about
the power of the presidency to set the future direction of the high court.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has pledged to choose new
justices who are like President Bush's 2 appointees: Chief Justice John G.
Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

By contrast, Democratic rival Barack Obama has pointed with favor to
Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. The
latter is a Republican and an appointee of President George H.W. Bush,
although he votes regularly with the court's liberal bloc.

This year, as usual, the major rulings came at the term's end, and
Kennedy, the 71-year-old Sacramento native and President Reagan appointee,
played the deciding role.

He spoke for the liberal bloc in two big cases. One rejected the Bush
administration's policy of total military control over detainees held by
the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said the prisoners have a right to
plead for their freedom before a federal judge.

The other case limited the death penalty to crimes involving murder. A 5-4
ruling rejected a move in Louisiana and 5 other states to extend capital
punishment to individuals who are convicted of raping a child.

But the conservative bloc also prevailed in three important decisions,
thanks to Kennedy's vote. For the first time, the court ruled that the 2nd
Amendment protects rights of individual gun owners, not just a state's
right to organize a militia. This 5-4 decision is likely to be the opening
salvo in a long legal war between advocates of gun rights and gun control.

The court again showed its skepticism toward laws that limit money in
politics. A 5-4 ruling struck down the so-called millionaire's amendment,
which allowed the opponents of rich candidates to accept larger donations.
The court said it violated the free speech rights of wealthy candidates
because it penalized them for their lavish spending on their campaigns.

And the court said again that it was determined to rein in big jury awards
intended to punish corporate wrongdoers. The justices canceled most of the
punitive damages handed down against Exxon Mobil Corp. for the 1989 Exxon
Valdez oil spill. The more than 32,000 fishermen affected by the spill off
Alaska were left with about 1/10 of the verdict amount that had been
awarded by a jury more than a decade ago.

Last year, the court was evenly split -- with Kennedy in the middle -- on
the regulation of abortion, the use of race in assigning students to
public schools and the government's power to combat global warming. The
ideological divide is so evident that the outcomes in most major cases can
be nearly predicted on the day the court agrees to hear the case.

Last June, over strong objections from Bush's lawyers, the court said it
would hear a case filed on behalf the Guantanamo prisoners seeking the
right to go before a judge. 2 weeks ago, as expected, the prisoners won on
a 5-4 vote.

A shift in the court's ideological balance depends on the next vacancy.
Because of the age of the justices, however, a President Obama would have
less chance of transforming the court than a President McCain.

The two oldest members of the court, Justices John Paul Stevens, 88, and
Ginsburg, 75, are among its most reliable liberals. If Obama replaced
them, the court's balance would probably remain unchanged.

But McCain could tip the balance to the right if he were to replace
Stevens or Ginsburg with a conservative.

The conservatives are the youngest members of the Supreme Court. Roberts
is 53, Alito is 58, and Justice Clarence Thomas turned 60 last week.

At times this year, the court seemed slightly less divided than before.
For example, Stevens and Breyer joined a 7-2 majority to reject a liberal
challenge to the use of lethal injections to carry out the death penalty.
They agreed there was no convincing evidence that condemned inmates would
suffer intense pain during an execution.

Stevens also joined with the conservatives to reject the Democrats'
challenge to new GOP-sponsored laws that require voters to show an
up-to-date state identification card at their polling place. He said the
challengers to an Indiana law failed to show this requirement would bar
eligible voters from casting a ballot.

Meanwhile, in two cases involving racial bias, Roberts and Alito joined
with the liberals. In a 7-2 decision, the court overturned a black man's
death sentence in Louisiana because prosecutors had schemed to remove all
the blacks from the jury.

And the court revived a racial-bias lawsuit from a black assistant manager
of a Cracker Barrel restaurant near Chicago who said he was fired after
complaining about the mistreatment of other black employees. The
restaurant chain contended that his suit should have been dismissed
because the old civil rights law at issue did not cover claims of
"retaliation."

In those bias cases, Scalia and Thomas dissented alone.

Surprisingly, employees won all the key job discrimination cases this
year. In a victory for older workers, the court said employers must prove
they had relied on "reasonable factors other than age" if their layoffs
fall hardest on workers older than 40.

But business also benefited from a new and emerging trend. The justices
have increasingly said federal regulatory laws trump, or preempt, state
laws.

Two weeks ago, the court struck down a California law that would have
barred employers from using state funds to oppose union organizers. The
high court said it conflicted with federal labor law.

And in February, the court said the makers of federally approved medical
devices cannot be sued by patients who say they were injured by a
defective device. Their lawsuits, filed in state court, were said to
conflict with the federal law.

States such as California also were told they could not require delivery
services, such as UPS or FedEx, to check to make sure they would not be
delivering products such as cigarettes or alcohol to minors. The justices
said state rules conflicted with federal laws that deregulated the airline
and trucking industries.

In that case, and others like it, the justices were either unanimous or
nearly so in their decisions. But by late June, when the major cases were
handed down, the 5-4 divide emerged stronger than ever.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

San Bernardino's 'Dead Presidents' murder trial exposes gang intrigue,
greed


A childhood friend of 2 gang leaders and 2 others slain in 2000 set up
their deaths, officials say.

On the West Side of San Bernardino, most everyone knew Johnny and Gilbert
Agudo.

They'd grown up in the tight-knit barrio.

Handsome and charismatic, they were the presidents of 2 cliques of the
West Side Verdugo street gang: Johnny, 31, of 7th Street Locos and
Gilbert, 27, of the Little Counts.

United, they led their gangs in feuds with rivals from other parts of
town.

But then things took an unexpected turn.

Early on the morning of July 9, 2000, police responded to calls of a
shooting behind a West Side duplex. The Agudos and 2 half-brothers,
Marselino and Anthony Luna, lay dead or dying in what would become the
biggest gang slaying in recent San Bernardino history.

8 years later, the so-called Dead Presidents case is underway in a San
Bernardino courtroom. Closing arguments are expected this week.

Prosecutors have charged Luis "Maldito" Mendoza, a boyhood friend of the
Agudos and a 7th Street gang member, with organizing the killings. Also
charged is a member of Mendoza's crew, Lorenzo Arias. Both could face the
death penalty.

Mendoza's cousin Froylan Chiprez -- another alleged shooter -- is believed
to be hiding in Mexico. John Ramirez, part of Mendoza's crew, pleaded
guilty and testified against Mendoza and Arias.

The arrests of Mendoza and the others shocked residents. All were members
of Johnny Agudo's 7th Street Locos. No West Side gang ever killed one of
its own.

The Mendozas were from Mexico, while the Agudos were a Mexican American
family with decades in the barrio. The arrival of Mexican immigrants had
upset some Latinos in the neighborhood. But Mendoza's brother was Johnny
Agudo's best friend and together they started 7th Street Locos.

"They grew up together," said Cheryl Kersey, the prosecutor handling the
case. "Nobody ever anticipated this."

The story of the Dead Presidents is a tale of neighborhood bonds torn
apart by power, betrayal and greed, prosecutors say. Behind it all, they
say, is the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which in many Southern California
barrios has turned gang members against one another.

"You grow up with somebody 15 or 20 years and he tries to kill you," said
a gang member who grew up with the Agudos and Mendozas, and requested
anonymity for fear of reprisal. "Something's wrong there."

San Bernardino's West Side is a flatland of wooden houses, small markets
and vacant lots that has always been separate from the rest of the city.

The Santa Fe railroad, built in the late 1800s, divided the West Side from
downtown. In the 1960s, the 215 Freeway, with offramps only heading east,
"strangled the business district here, which was extremely active," said
Esther Estrada, a city councilwoman who grew up in the neighborhood.

But the West Side hung in.

Santa Fe's train repair shop employed more than 1,000 people, most of them
West Siders. Men also worked at Kaiser Steel's factory in Fontana, or at
Norton Air Force base.

Kids "never thought we were poor," said Mercedes Agudo, the victims'
mother. "We knew it, but they didn't."

While gangs were a strong presence in the neighborhood when her kids were
young, Agudo said, there were other diversions too. In the early 1980s,
break dancing gripped the West Side and kept many kids out of trouble.

The neighborhood's best dancers were in Breaking Crew, organized by
Mercedes Agudo, and made up of her sons, Johnny and Gilbert, and numerous
cousins and friends, such as Marselino and Anthony Luna.

One rival was the Mendozas' Break Force, organized by Luis Mendoza and his
older brother, Issa, who came from Mexico as children. The Mexican
American kids chided them for how they dressed and their immigrant ways.
Rival camps of youths developed.

"They were Mexicanos. They weren't from here," said Patricia Gonzalez,
mother of Marselino Luna.

Yet the neighborhood united against outside threats.

In 1983, the school district moved to close Pacific High School. The West
Side loved the school. Barrio kids anchored its top-flight wrestling team.

Angel Agudo, the Agudos' elder brother, organized to save it. Mothers,
grandfathers, even gang members got involved. But the district prevailed,
and the school closed.

Then in 1984, Kaiser Steel closed, laying off dozens of neighborhood men.
In 1992, Norton Air Force Base also closed, taking 10,000 jobs. Then,
Santa Fe Railroad took its shop and a thousand jobs to Topeka, Kan.

New drugs arrived in the barrio.

In the early 1980s, said Mercedes Agudo, "the thing that really destroyed
a lot of families was PCP" -- an animal tranquilizer that makes humans
impervious to pain.

Crack came in the late 1980s. Kids dealing dope replaced men with union
jobs.

Youths stopped dancing to form gang cliques and feud over street corners.
Families fleeing the L.A. gang-and-crack nightmare brought more of it to
San Bernardino.

Violence skyrocketed. Many West Side youths went to prison.

Among them were Johnny and Gilbert Agudo. They began using PCP, became
hardened gang members and were in and out of prison, authorities said.
Johnny became president of the 7th Street Locos; Gilbert was president of
Little Counts.

New immigrants began moving in. They took the menial jobs that
neighborhood youths had counted as theirs. Old-time Mexican American
families felt invaded.

Meanwhile, from prison the Mexican Mafia, known as the Eme, Spanish for
the letter M, imposed new rules on Southern California Latino street
gangs.

Through the 1990s, Eme associates directed gangs to tax drug dealers in
their barrios. Disobeying meant death.

West Side gangs acquiesced.

"I saw a change within the gangs," said Leo Duarte, a native West Sider
and retired Mexican Mafia expert with the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation. "When an [Eme member] sends orders, they
comply. Every time somebody got out on parole, orders came with them: Get
crews going, start taxing."

The Eme replaced Kaiser and Santa Fe as the influential economic
organization in West Side life, Duarte said. Obedience to it overrode
barrio loyalty.

Who had "the keys" -- Eme-ordained authority to run barrio taxing --
became the predominant issue for once-independent gangs, Duarte said.

In 1999, Johnny Agudo was arrested with guns as he prepared to carry out
an Eme-ordered killing, Kersey said in an interview.

To reduce his prison sentence, he told police that Salvador "Toro"
Hernandez, a parolee, had guns and drugs at his house, Kersey said.

Hernandez, from Rancho Cucamonga, is a reputed Eme member who controls
West Side drug dealing, according to Kersey, Duarte and West Side gang
members. He was arrested with guns and drugs and went to prison for their
possession, Kersey said.

In court, gang members and Kersey alleged that Hernandez allegedly put a
"greenlight" -- a death warrant -- on Johnny Agudo.

A gang that doesn't execute a member greenlighted by the Eme faces a
greenlight on all its members, Kersey said in an interview.

Gilbert Agudo had "the keys" to the West Side, Ramirez testified in court.
Gilbert volunteered to kill his brother, Ramirez testified.

No one believed he would, Ramirez said

"Gilbert was very good at politics," Kersey said in an interview. "He was
in the midst of talking people out of killing Johnny."

Neighbors remember that while Johnny Agudo was in prison, Luis Mendoza
took over 7th Street Locos.

Johnny Agudo was released from prison in July 2000. Mendoza offered to
kill him if Gilbert did not, according to Kersey and court testimony.

The night of the killings, Mendoza and his crew met with the Agudos and
others at the West Side duplex.

There, in a darkened driveway, men who'd grown up together faced off over
the greenlight on Johnny Agudo and who would run the neighborhood for the
Eme, according to court testimony.

Amid the argument, the shooters allegedly opened fire and mortally wounded
the two pairs of brothers. Johnny Agudo died with a gun in his pocket.

"They were family," said John Ramirez, who pleaded guilty in the case but
claims to have done no shooting. "Everyone in it was family."

Gilbert Agudo was killed to prevent his retaliation; the Lunas because
they were witnesses, Kersey alleges.

Mendoza "knew if he did this for Eme, then he'd be in charge," Kersey said
in an interview. "He'd be running the streets."

Eight years later, the West Side neighborhood remains weak and fragmented.

Since the killings, the Eme has had trouble finding trustworthy soldiers
to step up and work the streets, Kersey said.

"Wipe out two brothers and it's had an effect up to today," she said,
because "this code about not killing each other is out the window."

Angel Agudo, whose family left the West Side, said he was not surprised
when his brothers were slain.

Given their positions in the Eme, "you're either going to go into the
upper echelon or somebody's going to take you out," he said. "The greed,
the envy, the struggle for power -- it all ate away at the neighborhood
unity."

(source: Los Angeles Times)