June 11 KENTUCKY: Death Row Inmate Asks For Execution A Kentucky Death Row inmate has asked the state Supreme Court to uphold the "benefit" of a death sentence, saying it was what he bargained for and wanted. Marco Allen Chapman filed an affidavit with the high court saying he wants to be put to death for the murders of two children and a brutal attack on 2 other people in northern Kentucky in 2002. Chapman pleaded guilty to the attacks in 2004. "My bargained for benefit in my 'plea deal' was the Death Sentence, and I specifically, knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily requested the same from the Circuit Court," Chapman wrote in a three-page affidavit filed last week. The Supreme Court is reviewing Chapman's case, as it does with all death sentences. Chapman, 35, admitted to killing 6-year-old Cody Sharon and 7-year-old Chelbi Sharon, and attacking their mother, Carolyn Marksberry, and their sister, Courtney Sharon. Chapman said he deserved to die for the Aug. 23, 2002 attack at Marksberry's home in Gallatin County. The trial judge, Tony Frohlich, said at the time that he could find no legal reason not to grant Chapman's request. Police said Chapman attacked the family because he was upset with Marksberry for telling Chapman's girlfriend to end a relationship with him. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Supreme Court reinstates death sentence in 1992 Pa. killings The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the death sentence of a Pennsylvania man who fatally shot his estranged wife and another man 15 years ago. Federal courts in Pennsylvania had set aside the death sentence of Andre Stevens because a prospective juror who opposed capital punishment was excluded from the jury. Monday's order followed the high court's decision last week in a similar case from Washington state. There, the justices said the trial judge properly used his discretion to disqualify a prospective juror who expressed equivocal views about capital punishment. Stevens' case now goes back to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He has other unresolved claims that he argues merit setting aside the death sentence. Stevens was convicted of killing his wife and a man who had been dancing with her at a bar in 1992. When prospective jurors underwent questioning in the penalty phase of Stevens' trial, one of them was excused after declaring, "I don't believe in the death penalty." Pennsylvania state courts later rejected Stevens' claim that the potential juror had been improperly excused, saying her demeanor strongly contributed to the judge's decision to exclude her. A federal judge set aside Stevens' death sentence, ignoring the state trial judge's assessment of the juror's demeanor. Pennsylvania officials say that in setting aside the death sentence, the federal court system substituted "its own debatable interpretation of the record," deciding an issue that by federal law must be left to the state courts to decide. The killings and the trial took place in Beaver County, Pa. The case is Beard v. Stevens, 06-511. (source: Associated Press) ************** Governor Rendell Signs Execution Warrant Governor Edward G. Rendell today signed a warrant for the execution by lethal injection of James T. Williams, formerly of Lehigh County. Williams, 39, was convicted and sentenced to die for murdering a man in Lehigh County during a 1995 street robbery under the guise of a drug buy. Williams was formally sentenced to death in September 2001. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed Williams' sentence on April 21, 2006. His petition to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari was denied on Feb. 20, 2007. Williams' execution is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 7. Williams is a prisoner at a federal prison in Virginia where he is serving a 687-month sentence for armed bank robbery. Governor Rendell has now signed 69 execution warrants. (source: Pennsylvania Governor's Office) ALABAMA: Death Penalty Appeal Without a Lawyer----A Dozen Alabama Death Row Inmates Are Without Lawyers, Advocates Say It took an Alabama jury less than 30 minutes to convict Larry Smith of murder and recommend that a judge send him to his death. With his life at stake and his last appeal deadline fast-approaching, Smith found a white-shoe Washington, D.C., law firm to take his case for free. His Washington attorneys discovered that Smith's trial lawyer had never shown the jury evidence that suggested Smith might be innocent. They persuaded a judge earlier this year to grant Smith a new trial. In any other state in the nation, the government would have provided Smith a free attorney to challenge the fairness of his trial. Alabama is the only state in the country that does not provide poor death row inmates with lawyers for post-conviction review of their cases. A dozen of the nearly 200 Alabama death row inmates are without lawyers, according to Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. "It's shameful and it's a disgrace," said Bill Bowen, a former judge on Alabama's Court of Criminal Appeals. "This is the last stage. If you have any chance at all, it has to be asserted by an attorney now before you're strapped to the gurney." Today, the U.S. Supreme Court could announce whether it will hear an appeal by a group of Alabama inmates, represented by Stevenson, asking the court to establish a constitutional right to a lawyer for death row inmates in post-conviction reviews. The Constitution guarantees a lawyer for poor criminal defendants during their trials and their first round of appeals. So-called post-conviction reviews, on the other hand, are civil cases brought to challenge the fairness of a conviction or sentence defendants have no established constitutional right to a lawyer in such cases. But, post-conviction reviews are often the only way to challenge a death sentence based on newly discovered evidence, such as DNA evidence, a biased jury, or as in Smith's case an incompetent trial lawyer. They have resulted in hundreds of exonerations or reduced sentences nationwide, and every state other than Alabama has opted to provide death row inmates with free lawyers for those appeals. A 'Woefully Inadequate' Defense As the police led Larry Smith to a patrol car, one of the arresting officers turned to Smith and said, "We're going to fry your a--," Smith testified at trial. Indeed, the evidence seemed compelling. In his trial in Albertville, Ala., the jury heard a witness testify that Smith had hatched a plan to rob friend Dennis Harris and Smith had signed a confession, admitting that he shot Harris in the head for $200. But when it came time for Smith's defense, court records show, the jury didn't hear the whole story. As his pro bono attorneys at Covington and Burling later discovered, Smith's trial lawyer never contacted several key witnesses who could have provided Smith with an alibi including one who later admitted that she had lied to the police to implicate Smith in the killing. The lawyer never investigated or challenged Smith's confession, which he believed was coerced by the police. The investigator his lawyer hired never even spoke to Smith. Half an hour after the defense rested its case, the jury came back with a verdict -- guilty. Smith's conviction was upheld by the Alabama appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case. Earlier this year, a state court judge ordered a new trial for Smith, saying that his trial lawyer was so "woefully inadequate" and that Smith's constitutional right to a fair trial had been violated. The state has appealed. Appeal 'Near Impossible' Without Lawyer Critics of Alabama's singular position on post-conviction death penalty counsel include former Alabama Supreme Court justices, law professors and several former presidents of the state bar association. They say it's virtually impossible to challenge a death penalty conviction without an experienced and dedicated counsel. "We shouldn't be relying on the good fortune that a lawyer will volunteer in every one of these cases," said Douglas Inge Johnstone, a former justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. "We need a system that will ensure that there is a just result for each person on death row." It is an omission, critics say, that undermines the basic right to a fair trial. "The right to counsel for post-conviction review is part and parcel of the very right to a lawyer at trial," said Johnstone. "That right is illusory if it can't be enforced." Post-conviction appeals can require intensive investigations into the facts of a case, interviews with witnesses and dozens of hours of legal research all difficult for death row inmates to accomplish from prison. Alabama has also erected complicated procedural rules for filing such appeals, which must be filed within a year. "The law of post-conviction appeals is one of the most complex areas of legal practice, period," said Daniel Filler, an associate dean at Drexel University College of Law, who studied Alabama's death penalty system last year for the American Bar Association. "In states where there's no lawyer, it's pretty near impossible." If Alabama inmates file a successful petition on their own, a judge has the option to appoint a lawyer, but the state will pay the lawyer a maximum of $1,000 for the appeal. "They would be working for less than minimum wage," said Stevenson. Most Inmates Do Have Lawyers The state of Alabama is quick to point out that most death row inmates, like Smith, have lawyers and highly qualified ones at that. With no state system in place, nonprofit groups like the Equal Justice Initiative and a number of top corporate law firms have stepped in to take on post-conviction appeals for free. "The representation they are getting is second to none," said Kevin Newsom, Alabama's solicitor general. "In a lot of cases, the state is outmanned, outresourced and outgunned by behemoth law firms." "The idea that inmates are en masse unrepresented, and wandering through the system alone, is just not true," Newsom said, adding that all the plaintiffs in the Alabama inmate lawsuit were represented by lawyers. Newsom added that inmates who filed their own appeal could amend their petitions once they had a lawyer. But advocates say it's unfair and irresponsible for a U.S. state to leave the burden of death penalty defense work to nonprofits. "To say the state doesn't have to do anything because a volunteer will show up is an abdication of the state's responsibility," Stevenson said. For one thing, Stevenson said, there are not enough volunteer lawyers to meet the demand. He also pointed out that often the lawyers came into the case too late to do much good. Robin Maher, who heads the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project, said most firms she approached refused to accept death penalty cases. "I've worked with firms for years trying to convince them to take a case," she said. A History of Problems The Alabama death row inmates' case, Stevenson said, is rooted in the reality of underfunded, often unqualified defense lawyers. An effective death penalty defense, as recommended by American Bar Association guidelines, can involve extensive investigation into the case and into the defendant's life history. A history of mental retardation, childhood abuse or poverty can all be used to try and persuade a jury to spare someone's life. A necessarily thorough investigation can eat up hundreds, even thousands, of hours and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Until 1999, Alabama capped public defender spending on death penalty cases at $1,000. Today, there is no cap, though lawyers are paid $60 an hour for in-court work and $40 an hour for out-of-court work, a fraction of what the lawyers would normally earn. Public defenders are limited to spending $2,000 on direct appeals. State law in Alabama only requires that court-appointed death penalty lawyers have five years of criminal law experience. Larry Smith's trial lawyer, Jack Daniel, had never tried a murder case in front of a jury, according to court documents. Daniel hired an investigator who had never investigated a criminal case before and who never interviewed Smith. Daniel also complained that he did not have enough money to investigate the case, court records. An Imperfect World If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the Alabama inmates' case, it will have to revisit its 1989 ruling in Murray vs. Giarratano, which denied Virginia prisoners a constitutional right to an attorney for their post-conviction appeal. The court was split on its reasoning in that case, and in a concurring opinion Justice Anthony Kennedy acknowledged that Virginia's death row inmates were probably not equipped to handle post-conviction proceedings on their own. But, he wrote, Virginia's system passed constitutional muster because no inmates had been unable to find a lawyer and because Virginia prisons were staffed with institutional attorneys. The complexity of death penalty law, Kennedy wrote, "makes it unlikely that capital defendants will be able to file successful petitions for collateral relief without the assistance of persons learned in the law." But, he added, states should be given "wide discretion" in deciding how to give prisoners adequate access the courts. While the Alabama inmates lost in trial court and in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta, they have been met with some sympathy. "If we lived in a perfect world, which we do not, we would like to see the inmates obtain the relief they seek," Circuit Court Judge Joel Dubina wrote in rejecting the inmates' suit. Newsom, Alabama's top lawyer, says his staff is not living in a perfect world either. "No one is opposed to death row inmates having lawyers in post-conviction proceeding," he said, "but the state is doing the best it can with limited resources. And Alabama has decided to put its resources into trials and direct appeals." While it does, there will be some death row inmates, like James Walker a recent addition to Alabama's death row who do not have lawyers. Recently, the state Supreme Court narrowly upheld Walker's murder conviction. Stevenson, of the Equal Justice Initiative, said Walker did not have an attorney and Equal Justice Initiative would not be able to take his case. Stevenson said he would search for a firm to take it for free. "I have no idea what will happen to him," he said. (source: ABC News) USA: IQ debate unsettled in death penalty cases----The Supreme Court ruled against executing the mentally retarded, but defining that group has proved difficult. 5 years after the Supreme Court declared in Atkins vs. Virginia that the death penalty was unconstitutional for those who are mentally retarded, Daryl Atkins still sits on death row. In August, lawyers for the man who won the landmark ruling will try again to convince a jury here that he is indeed mentally retarded and therefore deserves a life term in prison, not execution. 3 times before, the county prosecutor has persuaded juries here to condemn Atkins to die, and she expects to win a fourth time as well. "Daryl was a slow reader. He was lazy, and he came to school stoned. But until he committed this murder, no one thought he was mentally retarded," said Eileen M. Addison, the prosecutor. His case is not unique. Though the high court found that there was a "national consensus" against executing the mentally retarded, it left it to the states to decide which murderers would qualify for that exemption. Determined prosecutors have had little trouble convincing juries that a convicted killer with a low IQ is not necessarily retarded. The definition of retardation is imprecise; test results can vary, giving prosecutors an opportunity to produce additional scores and other evidence to make the case that an inmate is actually smart enough to die. The result is that the Supreme Court's ruling has had less effect than many had foreseen. "There has been more resistance than I expected," said University of New Mexico law professor James Ellis, an expert on mental retardation who represented Atkins before the Supreme Court. A few states moved off of death row several inmates who had IQ scores in the 60s or low 70s, he said. But states where capital punishment has strong support, including Virginia and Texas, have let juries decide. And "it's an uphill fight with the jury" to establish mental retardation, Ellis said. In 2002, he told the high court there were no reliable numbers on how many of the nation's more than 3,000 death row inmates were mentally retarded. Some experts predicted several dozen inmates would qualify for the exemption. Human Rights Watch said the number could be as high as 300. Since then, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, only a handful of inmates that he knows of have been found to be mentally retarded and had their death sentences commuted. The Atkins decision "has had an effect, but not a sweeping effect," said Dieter, whose center opposes capital punishment. "His case is emblematic because in a lot of states, it has resulted in case-by-case litigation." California has the largest death row population, 660 inmates. "We have not seen a substantial impact," said Dane Gillette, the state coordinator for capital punishment. "We anticipated some would claim to be retarded, and it has been raised in a handful of cases. But it has not yet resulted in a determination of retardation" requiring that the inmate be removed from death row, he said. The greatest effect of the court's ruling may have been in cases that followed. Some prosecutors probably chose not to seek the death penalty when a murder suspect had low IQ scores, legal experts said. Before the Atkins decision, the Supreme Court's major rulings on mental retardation came in the case of Johnny Paul Penry, a Texas murderer who was said to have the mental age of a 6 1/2 -year-old. In 1979, at age 22, he raped a woman and stabbed her to death with a pair of scissors. He confessed and was sentenced to death. The fact that he could not read or write or name all of the days of the week made little impact. But when his execution drew near, the high court in 1989 and again in 2001 overturned his death sentence on the grounds that Texas law had wrongly prevented jurors from fully weighing his mental disability as a reason for leniency. Nonetheless, Penry sits on death row in Texas. In the fall, he will go before a jury for a fourth time. As with Atkins, this trial will focus exclusively on whether he is retarded. Polk County prosecutor Lee Hon also expects to prevail again. "Penry is a not-too-bright, sexually violent predator," Hon said. "It's true he never made it out of first grade. He was educationally deprived. But when he got into the Texas prison system, he began to achieve a lot. He learned to read and write. He had a calculator in his cell. We had a lot of testimony to that effect." The brutal murder of the 22-year-old woman still hangs over the case, said John Wright, Penry's lawyer. "We offered a deal that would keep him in prison for life, but they won't take it," Wright said. "The prosecutors are bound and determined to kill him." Historically, the law has exempted from criminal punishment people who are mentally ill. If they were disturbed or delusional when they committed the crime, they presumably could not understand the consequences of their acts and therefore would not be considered legally responsible. People with mild mental retardation are judged to be competent to stand trial. They presumably understand when they have done wrong. They "should be tried and punished when they commit crimes," Justice John Paul Stevens said in the Atkins decision. "Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability" that puts them among the small group of the worst offenders who deserve to die. The Atkins case shows the difficulty of deciding whether a criminal is mentally retarded: a condition that Stevens, quoting the American Assn. on Mental Retardation, defined in part as "significantly subaverage intellectual functioning" measured, perhaps, by an IQ of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the ordinary tasks of life. By August of 1996, Atkins, then 19, had a long criminal record, including the shooting and wounding of a woman in her frontyard in Hampton, Va. Late one evening, he and a friend were "panhandling" for beer money at a convenience store when Atkins put a gun to the head of Eric Nesbitt, a 21-year-old airman stationed at the nearby Langley Air Force Base. They forced their way into Nesbitt's truck and made him drive to a bank and take $200 from an automated teller machine. The scene was captured on camera: the frightened young airman with Atkins holding a gun to his head. Next, the criminal pair drove him to a thickly wooded area near Yorktown, where Atkins took Nesbitt from the truck and shot him 8 times. He was tried at the York County Courthouse about four miles from the murder scene. A psychologist hired by the defense interviewed Atkins in jail and gave him a standard intelligence test, and said his IQ was 59. The psychologist testified Atkins was "mildly mentally retarded." The jury unanimously sentenced him to death. The Virginia Supreme Court reversed this sentence because of a technical error on the jury form; a new jury was convened and also voted for a death sentence. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court in 2001, and the 6-3 decision in Atkins' favor put his name into constitutional history. In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the ruling would turn the "process of capital trial into a game" and that "the symptoms of this condition can readily be feigned." Scalia's prediction was borne out in part. The prosecution and defense hired dueling psychologists to testify that Atkins was or was not mentally retarded. The defense appeared to have more trouble. The psychologist who had first described Atkins as mentally retarded reevaluated and retested him 2 years ago and scored his IQ at 74, slightly above the cutoff for retardation. On the witness stand, the psychologist explained that IQ scores could fluctuate and that Atkins' exposure to a team of lawyers and psychologists probably helped to raise his intelligence score. "We have an individual who is in much better intellectual shape now ironically due to the stimulation he had received while in confinement," Evan Nelson told the jurors. If Atkins was trying to feign retardation, he did a poor job. He correctly answered a series of questions about history and culture. He knew that "Abe Lincoln" was president during the Civil War, that the physicist known for the theory of relativity was "Einstein," and that the artist who painted the Sistine Chapel was "Michelangelo." When another psychologist asked him whether he had had relationships with more than one woman, Atkins asked: "Like a menage a trois?" Addison, the prosecutor, also poked holes in the 59 IQ score. The psychologist had said Atkins answered incorrectly when asked to identify Martin Luther King Jr. "Preacher," Atkins had replied. "For civil rights." The psychologist was hard-pressed to explain why that had been considered wrong. Ellis, the law professor from New Mexico, interviewed Atkins before the Supreme Court hearing. "I thought he was a good example. His testing was clearly in the range of mental retardation. And his life showed a lot of problems with adaptive behavior. He didn't drive a car because he couldn't pass the written exam." Teachers testified he had difficulty in school and was held back a grade. One example was repeated: When he copied a friend's homework paper in 8th grade, he also copied the friend's name at the top. Ellis worries that jurors may look for a sign that the defendant is different. "They may be looking for a physical manifestation of Down's syndrome. That's the stereotype," he said. Defense lawyers also say they are stymied by the need to prove the defendant is mentally retarded. "We think that is the wrong test," said attorney Richard Burr, a veteran opponent of capital punishment. "We think the state should have the burden of proving the defendant does not have mental retardation." In 2005, 12 jurors agreed with Atkins' prosecutors and said he did not qualify as retarded. A year later, however, the Virginia Supreme Court said the judge had erred by informing jurors that Atkins had been sentenced to death previously. This decision set the stage for still another trial this summer in the same courthouse. "It's been 5 years, but this issue is far from being resolved," said Dieter of the Death Penalty Center. "It's been a battle of wills, and no one is conceding." (source: Los Angeles Times) ****************************** Supreme Court Justices' Financial Reports Show Most to Be Millionaires What do Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy lack that the other 7 Supreme Court justices have in abundance? Money, according to annual financial disclosure reports released Friday. At least 6 and possibly 7 justices are millionaires. Then there are Kennedy and Thomas, who between them don't have a million bucks -- even after Thomas received a $166,000 advance for his autobiography due out in October. Thomas previously received $500,000 from HarperCollins Publishers, part of the $1 million-plus book deal he signed in 2003. Thomas supplemented his $203,000 salary with $25,000 from a seminar at Drake University and teaching at the University of Georgia. Kennedy likewise added to his salary by teaching at the University of Pacific law school, receiving $24,500. The disclosure forms also include expense-paid trips. Kennedy made 12, including an August jaunt that took him to Hawaii, Guam, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and England. The justices report their financial holdings only in broad ranges. They disclose gifts and earnings, as well as some details of reimbursements they receive for travel. Home values are not included. Justice Antonin Scalia's expense-paid travel took him to Israel, Italy, Puerto Rico and Switzerland. Scalia, with assets worth $1.2 million to $2.8 million, led the Court with 25 trips, including a February 2006 visit to Nashville, Tenn., to speak to the National Wild Turkey Federation. The group, dedicated to conserving wild turkeys and preserving hunting traditions, presented Scalia with a rifle valued at $600, he reported. Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg easily top the list of the Court's wealthy, each with holdings that exceed $5 million and could reach upward of $25 million. Souter's major holding is Chittenden Corp., a New England financial services company. The asset is worth $5 million to $25 million and paid Souter between $100,000 and $1 million in dividends last year. Ginsburg has 2 retirement accounts worth $1 million to $5 million. She also listed her husband Martin Ginsburg's law practice as worth $1 million to $5 million. Justice Stephen Breyer, worth between $4.9 million and $16.8 million, received $93,121 in royalty income last year for his book "Active Liberty." Breyer also made 21 trips, among them visits to England, France and Holland for university lectures and meetings with judges. Breyer and Chief Justice John Roberts, with assets from $2.4 million to $6.2 million, have wide-ranging stock holdings that include media, bank and technology companies. Breyer owns $1 million to $5 million of stock in Pearson, an international media company. Roberts owns up to $500,000 in Time Warner stock, as well as shares worth at least $100,000 each of Dell and Microsoft. The chief justice, whose salary is $212,000, reported receiving $10,000 from the University of Miami for teaching duties in November. His trip to Florida was one of six expense-paid trips he made last year. Justice John Paul Stevens, with assets of $1.1 to $3.5 million, has his largest investments in municipal bonds and tax-free bond funds. Stevens also owns a 200-acre farm in Webster County, Iowa, valued at $250,000 to $500,000. Justice Samuel Alito reported assets of $770,000 to $2 million. His most valuable investments are several Vanguard mutual funds and Exxon Mobil stock worth $100,000 to $250,000 each. (source: Associated Press) ************************************* Wrongfully Convicted----Reforms urgently needed to protect the innocent In 1976, I was indicted, charged and tried in less than 3 months for a murder I did not commit. As shocking and traumatizing as the accusation was, hearing the guilty verdict and death sentence was far more so. I had previously thought that only the guilty were convicted, except perhaps in relatively minor cases where the consequences were hardly death by electrocution then the more humane method or life imprisonment. The guilty verdict hit me like something Id never come close to experiencing. It was unreal. Now I think I better understand why deer just dont jump out of the way when a car with headlights is bearing down on them. They are paralyzed with fear. It was like a nightmare in which I couldnt move. Guilty. Impossible words were said. I wasnt there to see it happen, but my mother collapsed shortly afterward, either in the courthouse or just outside. The guilty verdict meant death. I had read the statutes and knew that if I was convicted, a death sentence would be mandatory as long as I maintained my innocence. I had refused a plea bargain to a reduced charge of manslaughter prior to trial I had told the lawyer I would refuse all deals and I knew I wouldn't compromise the truth here either. Death it was, by electrocution. During my trial we learned that the actual murderer who was the state's chief witness and had been an escapee from prison at the time of the murder had told at least 1 other person that he had "killed this guy" and was setting me up in a deal to gain his freedom. The judge, a cynical and extremely biased former prosecutor, ruled that this evidence was irrelevant I was on trial, not the states chief witness so the jury never heard it. After the state and defense rested, the judge charged the jury. The jury then picked a foreman, ate dinner, "examined" all of the exhibits and convicted me in 3 hours. The real killer was released the day after my trial despite the fact that the prosecutions witnesses swore this would not be the case. Today I know that it takes very little to convict, sometimes nothing. But back then I continued to think that my innocence would prevail. There is nothing stronger than the truth. I thought we had the best criminal justice system in the world. Yes, mistakes were made, but not when someone's very life was at stake. I was white, fairly intelligent and even knew something about the law. They wouldnt or couldn't take advantage of me. I was not rich, though. In fact, I was relatively poor. But what did that matter when it came to actual innocence? As I tragically realized later, not having money, or affluence, had a lot to do with everything, especially in the criminal justice system. Wrongful convictions occur far more frequently than most of us realize, than most of us can even imagine. There is no doubt in my mind that those Duke lacrosse boys would be in prison right now if their families had not had the means to challenge those allegations. I have little doubt that the prosecutor would be addressed as Judge Mike Nifong today if the system had brought its awesome power to bear on those who did not have the means to fight back, which is happening very frequently. The Duke Law School also has a "Wrongful Convictions" class, and there's little doubt in my mind that that class was seeing the earmarks of a wrongful conviction very early on. Nifong made a thoughtless blunder, but he revealed a phenomenon that is commonplace in our country. There have been 124 exonerations from death row. You would think it would be hard to end up on death row; imagine how hard it would be to get off death row. You practically have to prove youre innocent, and incredibly, sometimes even that is not enough. When a crime incites the public's passion, it is easy for the public to assume that someone with little status in society is guilty. There is no doubt in my mind that the killing of a police officer sets up circumstances where the possibility of wrongful conviction increases. The public assumes guilt once someone has been charged. Sadly, I catch myself assuming it often enough. The media assume it in a big way and they play up on it. It sells. The police and prosecutors of course know, and too often judges and even defense attorneys assume guilt. It is an interwoven fact of our legal system. Recently, my next-door neighbor stunned me with a question she blurted out. After having known me for more than 2 years, and then just learning that I had once been on death row, she said, "But how could you have been on death row and not killed someone?!" What happened to me was that the police were so intent on convicting me that they used the testimony of a man who turned out to be the real killer. That man was an escaped prisoner, who sold me out in a deal with prosecutors that sent me to death row. It was only during my second trial that the real killer was arrested again, and bragged to fellow inmates that he had set me up to take the fall for a murder he committed. 5 of those inmates testified in my behalf, and that is the only reason that I am free today and not among the wrongfully executed. I made it out because I had the ability to represent myself, and luckily got a judge who cared to look at the facts. As in the case of Roy Brown, recently released from prison here in New York, it was not the system that worked but his own efforts. He solved the murder in his case from jail, and fortunately there was DNA evidence to exonerate him. With Texas, New York leads the country in the number of wrongful convictions. Most of these came to light years after legal appeals were exhausted. If New York had an active death penalty, some of these men may not be here today. It boggles my mind that the New York State Senate would vote for a new death penalty bill without enacting the many reforms needed to lessen the possibility of wrongful convictions. Before that recent vote, Sen. Eric Schneiderman, D-Manhattan, proposed that some changes to protect the innocent be added to the bill. The proposed amendment would have required improved preservation and access to DNA evidence, videotaping of interrogations and revised eyewitness identification procedures. These are the minimal reforms suggested by the Innocence Project to prevent wrongful convictions. I know that the system can never be fail-proof, but it can be better. Sen. Dale M. Volker, R-Depew, and 36 others voted against these protections, and then for the bill without any changes whatsoever. There is no place for a death penalty when human beings make mistakes. Life without parole is the worst punishment and allows mistakes to come to light, no matter how long it takes. (source: Gary Beeman, Opinion, The Buffalo News) ****************************************** To the Editor: If the president is truly concerned about forcing taxpayers to support initiatives to which they are morally opposed, he might want to consider the fact that a large number of American taxpayers, very much against their will, are currently compelled to support both state-sponsored death by execution and the pre-emptive invasion of a country that did not directly threaten us. Clearly, all taxpayers are not equal in our presidents eyes when it comes to moral concerns. Geoff Munger----New Canaan, Conn., June 7, 2007 (source: Letter to the Editor, New York Times) ************** U.S. confidence in death penalty eroding: study Americans' support for the death penalty is declining as more cases of wrongful criminal convictions and problematic executions come to light, said a study released Saturday. The Death Penalty Information Center's "A Crisis of Confidence" report said that although still 62 % of people in the United States agree with capital punishment for people convicted of murder, 43 %said they believe it is better to sentence murderers to life in prison without parole. Just 39 % expressed strong confidence that only truly guilty people get sentenced to death in the United States, while 29 % said they had little or no confidence that only guilty people are executed. The general support for capital punishment in the United States has remained fairly steady at 64-66 % over the past 6 years, according to the study, down from 80 % in 1994. But when told about the dozens of people freed from death row as innocent of charges that brought them the death penalty, about 1/3 of those polled said they still support executions but less strongly. However, 37 % said the knowledge of erroneous death-sentence convictions did not change their support for capital punishment. "The public is losing confidence in the death penalty," said the study. "People are deeply concerned about the risk of executing the innocent, about the fairness of the process, and about the inability of capital punishment to accomplish its basic purposes." The poll noted that 62 % of people believe that innocent people have been sent to death row, and that 60 % do not believe the death penalty is a deterrent to people committing murder. The report was based on a poll of 1,000 adults taken in March. (source: China Post) *********************** Roberts Court Discord Rises Over Abortion, Death-Penalty Cases A year after U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts publicly pledged to aim for agreement among the justices, he presides over a Supreme Court divided into ideological camps. Recent rulings on abortion, job discrimination and the death penalty have highlighted the schism, marking victories for the court's conservatives and leaving its liberals to air their frustrations in dissent. The final 3 weeks of the court's term may offer more of the same. The justices are preparing to hand down rulings in school-integration and campaign-spending cases that proved divisive during arguments. The court is scheduled to release rulings today at 10 a.m. in Washington. "There isn't consensus on this court, and this isn't a court right now with a middle bloc,'' said Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Roberts, 52, has made consensus a top goal since he took the oath of office in September 2005. Speaking at Georgetown University's law-school graduation last year, he said that "the rule of law is strengthened when there is greater consensus and agreement about what the law is.'' He had some success in his 1st term, as the court resolved more than half of its cases without dissent, including fights on abortion and campaign-finance restrictions. Split Decisions His 2nd term has been a different matter. The court has produced 14 rulings decided by 5-4 margins, compared with only 4 at the same point a year ago, according to statistics compiled by the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Eleven of those 14 decisions pitted the court's liberal wing -- Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer -- against Roberts and fellow conservatives Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. That's left Justice Anthony Kennedy to cast the deciding vote, more often than not siding with the Roberts group. Kennedy voted to allow restrictions on abortion, restrict pay-disparity lawsuits and limit the rights of accused criminals. "This was inevitable,'' said Charles Cooper, a Washington lawyer at Cooper & Kirk who worked with Roberts and Alito in the Justice Department during President Ronald Reagan's administration. "What we're seeing is that the court, on many of these politically contentious and jurisprudentially contentious issues, is a divided court.'' 'Graphic Description' Last week, Stevens, 87, drew attention to what had been a little-covered dispute involving juror selection in a death penalty case by announcing his disagreement in the courtroom. His written dissent criticized Kennedy's majority opinion for including a "graphic description'' of the murders, "perhaps in an attempt to startle the reader or muster moral support for its decision.'' Stevens included that line even though Kennedy's opinion, at least its final form, said only that the convicted man had "robbed, raped, tortured and murdered'' one woman and "robbed, raped, tortured and attempted to murder'' another. Those displays of frustration have led some court-watchers to speculate that the liberal 4 are looking ahead, anticipating rulings later this month that will limit school integration efforts and give interest groups more power to spend money in advance of elections. "They know what all the other decisions are on the docket and we don't,'' Chemerinsky said. Those cases may mark a shift from the days of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the court's swing vote on many social issues before she retired last year. President George W. Bush selected Alito, 57, to succeed her. O'Connor's Influence O'Connor, 77, backed abortion rights, campaign-finance restrictions and, in some contexts, the use of a race as a school admissions criterion to ensure diversity. She also had close personal relationships with Ginsburg and Breyer. "When O'Connor was the swing vote, she did have some genuine sympathies with the liberals in some of these emotional areas, and that's no longer the case,'' said Marci Hamilton, a former O'Connor law clerk who teaches at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in New York. "In a lot of ways, the liberals are feeling more marginalized than they felt when Justice O'Connor was on the court.'' (source: IPS News)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----KY., PENN., ALA., USA
Rick Halperin Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:15:29 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
