[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 28



TEXAS:

3 condemned killers lose appeals


3 condemned murderers lost appeals Wednesday before the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals, including an El Paso man convicted of killing a woman
and then ordering a friend to cut off his victim's fingers to prevent his
DNA from being linked to the slain woman.

Justen Grant Hall, 26, was free on bail on an earlier murder charge when
he was charged with the 2002 slaying of Melanie Ruth Billhartz, 29, of El
Paso.

Ms. Billhartz's body was found in a shallow grave in Dona Ana County, N.M.
According to testimony, Mr. Hall ordered a friend to bury her and hack off
her fingers. An autopsy showed the fingers were missing from her right
hand.

The appeals court rejected 16 points of error in Mr. Hall's trial.

In the 2nd case, the appeals court upheld the conviction and death
sentence of John Manuel Quintanilla Jr., 30, of Victoria for the November
2002 slaying of Victor Billings. A former Jackson County sheriff's deputy,
Mr. Billings was shot several times while trying to foil a robbery at
Action Amusement Center in Victoria.

Mr. Quintanilla was 1 of 2 men, each holding a rifle and wearing a mask,
who walked through the back door of the gaming room and demanded patrons
remain seated and hand over their money.

In the 3rd case, Beunka Adams lost his appeal in the 2002 fatal shooting
of a disabled man at a convenience store in Rusk. Kenneth Vandever, 37,
was killed; two female employees were abducted and one of them assaulted.

Mr. Adams, now 24, and co-defendant Richard Cobb were both accused in the
case, with Mr. Cobb convicted of shooting Mr. Vandever and Mr. Adams
convicted of shooting the 2 women. The women testified that Mr. Adams was
in charge during the holdup and abduction. He also was identified as the
man who raped one of the women.

Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Cobb were sentenced to death.

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

Amnesty International USA Press Release-----FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


Supreme Court Ruling in Scott Panetti Case 'A Much-Needed Step Toward a
Humane America,' Says Amnesty International

Amnesty International applauds today's United States Supreme Court ruling
in Panetti v. Quarterman, which prevents the execution of a man with
severe schizophrenia.

"The Supreme Court has taken a much-needed step toward a more humane
America," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA
(AIUSA). "Perhaps now we can recognize that this country's resources would
be much better spent improving the mental health system to help ensure
that similarly tragic crimes are not committed in the first place."

The Supreme Court decided that the defendant, Scott Panetti, is not
"competent" to be executed because of his extensive history of paranoid
schizophrenia and his fundamental lack of rational understanding. Panetti,
who was convicted of murder, represented himself during trial proceedings.
He wore a purple cowboy suit and gave a rambling, nonsensical presentation
in his defense in which he subpoenaed John F. Kennedy, Pope John Paul II,
Anne Bancroft, and Jesus. Witnesses at the trial described it as a
"farce," a "joke," a "circus," and a "mockery." Nevertheless, the jury
returned a guilty verdict and Texas sentenced Scott Panetti to death in
1995.

In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ford v. Wainwright that executing
the "insane" violates the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." Ford
identified a constitutional right that already existed in common law:
"civilized" societies do not execute individuals who lack the basic
capacity to understand why they are being punished."

"Texas needs to recognize that it cannot flout the law as it sees fit,"
said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of AIUSA's Program to Abolish the
Death Penalty. "The Supreme Court recognizes that someone as severely
delusional as Scott Panetti simply should not be executed. Still,
protection against the death penalty for those deemed "insane" is
arbitrarily applied, woefully inadequate and out of step with most of the
world, and that must change. This decision is a small step in the right
direction."

# # #

(source: Amnesty International USA)

[my note: to read the lengthy decision, go to:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06slipopinion.html]

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

Court Blocks Execution of Mentally Ill Man----Lawyers Claimed Inmate
Didn't Understand Reasons For Execution


The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the State of Texas cannot put to
death a mentally ill death row inmate even though he claims he doesn't
fully understand why he is being executed.

Scott Panetti, who has battled mental illness for years, brutally murdered
his estranged wife's parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado. A jury found him
competent to stand trial for the murders and a judge allowed him to
represent himself in court.

At his trial each day, Panetti wore a cowboy hat, bandana and boots. He
rambled incoherently and contended that it was one of his own alternate
personalities who had committed the crime. He attempted to subpoena Jesus
Christ.

The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to death in 1995. After
years of appeals, Panetti's case reached the Supreme Court in April, when
the justices heard arguments about whether Panetti can be executed if he
doesn't fully understand that representatives of the State of Texas will
put him to death for his crime.

Keith Hampton, a lawyer for Panetti said, "We believe he has to have a
rational understanding as to why he is being executed -- otherwise society
is denied a sense of retribution for his crime."

Panetti's lawyers wanted the justices to settle on a definition of mental
illness for the purpose of competency for execution.

In 1986 the Supreme Court found in Ford v. Wainwright that the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment forbids the
execution of individuals suffering from insanity and identified several
reasons why the court found execution of the insane to be
unconstitutional.

The court questioned the value of executing a person who does not
comprehend why he is being put to death. Panetti's lawyers wanted the
court to clarify that ruling and define a test for establishing insanity
in this context.

Attorneys from the State of Texas representing the state's Department of
Criminal Justice argued against Panetti. In briefs, the lawyers supported
Panetti's death sentence writing, "No judge or jury has ever found him
incompetent" and citing testimony by a psychiatrist who observed that
Panetti understood why he was facing capital-murder charges, and the
significance of the punishment he was going to receive.

In briefs, lawyers also argued that there is evidence that Panetti was
being "deliberately manipulative" to "create the impression of mental
illness."

Supporters of the death penalty, like Professor John McAdams of Marquette
University, say they are weary of arguments made by Panetti and supported
by groups such as the Counsel for American Psychological Association and
the Counsel for National Alliance on Mental Illness.

McAdams argued, "Once you let the psychologists loose they can explain why
no one is responsible for anything." He is worried about a so-called
competency for execution test saying, "it sounds like a huge incentive to
play dumb and pretend to have illusions. It rewards people shrewd enough
to fake mental illness."

But advocates for the mentally ill argue that Panetti's case is important
because while an individual might be determined competent to stand trial,
he may suffer from a mental disorder that makes him later unable to
understand his execution.

The American Psychological Association has proposed that if a court finds
that a prisoner has a mental disorder that prohibits him from
understanding the nature of the punishment, the "sentence of death should
be reduced to a lesser punishment."

Ronald Honberg of the National Alliance on Mental Illness says that
despite the Supreme Court's holding in the Ford, there is still a real
problem with the standards courts use to define mental illness. Honberg
says, "there are lots of people on death row how have mental illness,
there are only a few who are escaping the death penalty."

(source: ABC News)

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

SUPREME COURT RULES TEXAS MAN WITH SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS MAY NOT BE
EXECUTED


The U.S Supreme Court has ruled that Texas may not execute a severely
mentally ill man who was allowed to defend himself at his trial despite
his schizophrenia, 14 stints in mental hospitals, and a belief that the
devil compelled his actions. In its 5-4 decision in Panetti v.
Quarterman/, the Court held that the lower court had used the wrong
standard in judging Panetti's competency. Panetti, whose mental illness
has worsened during his 12 years on death row, believed his approaching
execution was part of an evil conspiracy to keep him from spreading God's
word.

"The Court's ruling today is consistent with a long history of society's
revulsion at executing the insane," said Richard Dieter, the Death Penalty
Information Center's Executive Director. "As our knowledge of mental
illness deepens, it makes less sense to apply society's worst punishment
to those who have little understanding of the world around them."

In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court held in /Ford v. Wainwright/ that it was
unconstitutional to execute an inmate who was presently insane. The U.S.
Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Panetti could be executed
because he was aware that he committed a crime and that he was to be
punished. The question for the Supreme Court in Panetti v. Quarterman was
whether mere awareness of one's acts can be equated with mental
competence, or whether the person also needs to rationally understand what
is taking place. In writing about this question for the majority, Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy noted, "Gross delusions stemming from a severe mental
disorder may put an awareness of a link between a crime and its punishment
in a context so far removed from reality that the punishment can serve no
proper purpose. It is therefore error to derive from /Ford/, and the
substantive standard for incompetency its opinions broadly identify, a
strict test for competency that treats delusional beliefs as irrelevant
once the prisoner is aware the State has identified the link between his
crime and the punishment to be inflicted."

Looking beyond this decision, the American Bar Association has passed a
resolution calling for an end to executing those with serious mental
illness. An almost identical resolution has been endorsed by the American
Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the
National Alliance on Mental Illness, which urged the Justices to take
Panetti's case.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

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

High court blocks execution of mentally ill killer


The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer
whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is
mentally ill.

Scott Louis Panetti shot his in-laws to death 15 years ago in front of his
wife and young daughter.

Panetti knows what he did, but believes that he is on death row because he
preaches the word of God, his lawyers say.

Panetti's lawyers wanted the court to determine that people who cannot
understand the connection between their crime and punishment because of
mental illness may not be executed.

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars "the execution of a person
who is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that
he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of
committing," they said in court papers.

Texas said the court should reject Panetti's appeal on procedural grounds.
But it also argued that the court should set a tougher standard for mental
illness exceptions to capital punishment. Only if a Death Row inmate
"lacks the capacity to recognize that his punishment both is the result of
his being convicted of capital murder and will cause his death" should his
execution be halted, the state said. Panetti is competent on that basis,
it said.

(source for both: Associated Press)






PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence

Philly schoolyard killer gets death sentence in other case


One of the men convicted in the notorious schoolyard slaying of a
10-year-old boy has been sentenced to death for a separate murder.

Kareem Johnson, 22, sat stone-faced Wednesday as the jury foreman read the
verdict to the hushed courtroom.

His father, Terrance Johnson, walked out while one red-eyed juror sobbed.

The death sentence follows Johnsons conviction Monday of 1st-degree murder
in the 2002 shooting death of Walter Smith, 39, outside a North
Philadelphia bar.

"Kareem Johnson is one of the most evil, violent killers I have ever come
across," Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson said, "and if anyone ever
deserves a sentence of death, he does."

Johnson was previously convicted of firing the bullet that struck Faheem
Thomas-Childs during a gunfight that broke out as children arrived at
school on Feb. 11, 2004.

Defense attorney Michael Coard plans to appeal the death sentence.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Will state seek death sentence?


The state is holding out its options on whether to seek the death penalty
for a Glen St. Mary man charged with the brutal rape and beating death of
a Yulee teenager in the early morning hours of June 1.

Brock R. Morris, 31, described by a relative of one of his victims as "a
monster," was indicted June 15 for 1st-degree murder and sexual battery
with great force in the death of 16-year-old Hope Norman.

Mr. Morris, in county jail without bond, entered a written plea of not
guilty in circuit court this week. A case management conference is
scheduled for July 23, and he will likely be defended by John Kearms of
Gainesville, the chief assistant public defender for the Eighth Circuit.

State Attorney Bill Cervone of Gainesville, who was present at the recent
grand jury hearing, said this week Mr. Morris' criminal history will be
scrutinized in coming weeks before a decision is made on whether to seek
capital punishment.

If so, it will be the 1st such case since a defendant was convicted of
killing a Baker County deputy in 1966. The death sentence was later
commuted.

"We've not made that decision and we're still collecting information on
his background," said Mr. Cervone. "I expect we'll have a preliminary
decision in a month or so."

The "preliminary" aspect of a decision has to do with technicalities in
case preparation in capital punishment cases, said the prosecutor. At the
very least, the state would seek to put Mr. Morris in prison with no
chance of parole.

Mr. Morris made incriminating taped statements to sheriffs investigators
that weekend, and led them to the shallow grave west of his trailer home
off Okey Dr. where he had buried the victim.

He told police he raped and killed the teen near a pond behind the
trailer, then dragged her body several hundred yards over 2 wire fences to
the grave. An autopsy revealed Ms. Norman died of multiple blunt trauma,
and that she had been raped.

Ms. Norman, who before that evening did not know Mr. Morris, appeared at
his trailer with her 36-year-old mother the previous evening. The mother
then left the Morris trailer with an acquaintance, and after the
defendant's wife took their children to her mother's following an
argument, the victim and assailant were left alone.

Mr. Morris told police he became enraged when Ms. Norman refused to have
sex with him.

The defendant has a record of 18 arrests, most of them for property and
drug offenses. He was arrested once for a crime of violence for inflicting
cigarette burns on a 2-year-old child he and a girlfriend were babysitting
in 1995. He was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor.

Mr. Morris has twice served time in state prison.

(source: Baker County Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Judges seem willing to cap prison population----The 2 jurists assigned to
force change doubt that Schwarzenegger will reform the system.


2 federal judges charged with forcing changes to California's troubled,
overcrowded prisons expressed doubt Wednesday that Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger would turn the system around, and indicated a willingness
to move toward capping the inmate population.

Such a move could push California's correctional system - the biggest in
the nation - to overhaul the way it sentences criminals or even, some say,
trigger the early release of thousands of inmates.

In a federal court hearing, lawyers representing prisoners appealed
Wednesday to U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and
Thelton Henderson of San Francisco to impanel a three-jurist court to
impose a cap.

Schwarzenegger administration attorneys told the judges that recent
progress on improving medical and mental healthcare for inmates rendered
such a drastic move unnecessary.

Under a 1995 federal law, three judges must weigh a prison population cap
before such a limit can be imposed. To convene such a panel, Karlton and
Henderson would have to decide that other methods to reduce overcrowding
have been tried for a reasonable length of time.

If a panel were convened, the three federal judges would have to
determine, before they could set a number for the prison population, that
overcrowding was the primary cause of inadequate care for sick and
mentally ill prisoners, and that public safety would not be compromised by
a population cap.

Henderson and Karlton, who have spent years handling class-action inmate
lawsuits in which they've found medical and mental healthcare for
prisoners so deplorable as to be unconstitutional, are expected to issue a
ruling within weeks.

The judges said the $7-billion, 170,000-inmate system, designed to house
100,000, seems to be deteriorating, not improving, despite years of
federal court intervention that includes stripping control of prisoner
healthcare and mental health treatment from the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"I actually had the delusion that we would someday get out of this
system," Karlton said, "and it's clear that in the last year and a half, 2
years, with all of the work, with all of the effort, there's been a
backsliding that's perceptible."

The judges also expressed doubt that the state would come up with a
workable plan to ease overcrowding even if they set a population cap in
motion.

"It would not surprise me at all, should we do that, that this plan would
not be worth much more than the paper it's written on," Henderson said.
"That's been my experience."

Karlton said he "wouldn't even consider what is being asked" if the
governor and Legislature were to adopt a meaningful plan to deliver mental
health care.

"But there's no evidence at all that that's going to happen," he said. "A
third of the [mentally ill inmate] population is getting no adequate care.
We don't have staff; we don't have beds. We can't reach them."

Lawyers for inmates called the decision one of life and death, saying
prisoners die each week unnecessarily for lack of adequate medical care,
while others become mentally unbalanced dealing with the stress of
teeming, violent institutions.

"We understand the trepidation that you feel in taking that step," Don
Specter, attorney for the Prison Law Office in San Quentin, told the
judges, "but it's one that must be done because the governor and
Legislature have essentially abdicated their responsibility to run a
constitutionally adequate prison system."

Attorneys for the Schwarzenegger administration pointed to the recent
enactment of legislation - AB 900, backed by Democrats and Republicans -
to borrow $7.4 billion to add 53,000 prison and jail beds. They noted that
Schwarzenegger has also begun moving prisoners to out-of-state lockups,
with a goal of exporting 8,000.

And they pointed to recent progress by Robert Sillen, the man appointed by
Henderson to oversee prison healthcare, including construction of a new
clinic at San Quentin prison and the hiring of an additional 25 registered
nurses each month.

Paul Mello, an attorney representing the corrections department, quoted
from one of Sillen's recent reports: "The cure to existing healthcare
problems will be difficult and costly to implement regardless - regardless
- of population control efforts."

"Seems like that answers the question," Mello told the judges in a 2-hour
hearing. "A population cap or prisoner release order isn't going to solve
the problem."

"I think we need to give it a chance," he said of Sillen's work. "I think
we need to give AB 900 a chance."

Henderson said he believed Schwarzenegger was trying hard to fix the
problem but was stymied by legislators who were not willing to reform
California's sentencing policies.

Republican lawmakers and a handful of moderate Democrats have resisted the
creation of a commission to scrutinize California's sentencing policies,
and several months ago Schwarzenegger eliminated $450,000 from his
proposed budget to fund such a commission.

"We have senators say, 'I will never agree to a program that lets anyone
get out of jail one day before their sentence,' " Henderson said.

Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) is pushing legislation - SB 110 - to
launch a sentencing commission. She attended the federal court hearing
Wednesday."To a large extent, the judges accurately described this
political system that refuses to act even when it knows it must," Romero
said.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Bill Maile said the governor remained confident
that Henderson and Thelton would not move to limit the prison population.

"The governor has consistently said that releasing dangerous prisoners
early is not a solution to prison overcrowding," Maile said. "Public
safety is his highest priority."

Some corrections experts said tens of thousands of prisoners could be
freed from prison without threatening public safety if inmates were
carefully screened and given time-off credit for working or participating
in rehabilitation programs.

Barry Krisberg, president of the nonprofit National Council on Crime and
Delinquency, said he recently reviewed 14 studies of state and county
early-release programs and found no increase in crime rates or the rate at
which those who were released early returned to prison.

"There's 140,000 people a year released anyway" from California prisons,
he said. "If you marginally release a few extra people, but if you do good
risk assessment and provide services, you'll actually improve public
safety."

(source: Los Angeles Times)