April 1 TEXAS: Michigan authorities await warrant in baby death case A young couple accused by police of killing their 2-month-old baby girl is fighting extradition to Hays County to face capital murder charges. Cipriano Gonzales IV and Esther Marie Gonzales were arrested in their hometown March 17, days after Cynthea Gonzales died at a San Marcos hospital of what investigators say were intentionally inflicted head injuries. The couple could face the death penalty if convicted although Chief Deputy District Attorney Wes Mau has said he does not yet know if he will seek it. Holland, Mich. District Judge Brad Knoll on Thursday postponed a hearing for up to 60 days because that state's attorney general had not yet received a warrant from Texas Gov. Rick Perry calling for the couple's return to Texas to stand trial. Until he sees that paperwork, Esther Gonzales' attorney said he will not know how he will challenge the extradition. But mounting questions about conflicting autopsies gives reason to doubt their guilt, said Holland lawyer John Moritz. "If they are returned and found guilty - and I'm certainly not implying that they would be - they could be put to death. We take that very seriously and we're going to resist extradition as much as possible," Moritz said. Cipriano Gonzales IV's attorney, Brad Johnson, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Their options may be limited. The only defense against extradition is to argue that the arrested parties are not the same people being sought, Mau said. "Essentially, their only option is to say, We're not the people you're looking for.' Their guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it at this point. That will be decided in a court in Hays County," Mau said. Moritz concedes the difficulties, but said he believes his client and her husband are innocent. "It's my considered opinion that she did not commit this offense. I don't say that lightly [because] we're talking about the death of a child. She's a grieving mother that's lost a child and now she's being blamed for it" Moritz said. Travis County Chief Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo concluded in the 1st autopsy that Cynthea Gonzales died "a sudden unexpected death" of undetermined causes. Tarrant County Chief Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani preliminary has told investigators the death was caused by severe head trauma. The Daily Record reported on Wednesday that Peerwani did not have the child's brain to examine before reaching his conclusion. Moritz said photos show bruising on Cynthea Gonzales' body after the Peerwani autopsy that were not present at a viewing after the Bayardo autopsy. Also on Thursday, Bayardo, who is likely to be called as a defense witness if the case goes to trial, announced his retirement after 28 years as Travis County's chief medical examiner. (source: San Marcos Daily Record) ************** Keel looks to reverse 2nd-place finish----First round in court primary favored incumbent Holcomb; 3rd Court candidates also in runoff. A 14-year string of election-night victories is on the line for Austin's Terry Keel, who hopes to outspend, outcampaign and out-Republican his rival, incumbent Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles Holcomb, for a come-from-behind primary runoff victory on April 11. Keel expects to raise $100,000 and says he has devoted virtually all of his spare time to campaigning the past 9 months, driving and flying across Texas to address Republican clubs and county groups. His car radiator recently gave in under the pressure. Holcomb has taken a more laissez-faire approach, making few campaign stops and declining to actively raise money. In most political races, the advantage would belong to the hard-charging Keel, but not necessarily with the Court of Criminal Appeals, which toils in obscurity despite being the state's highest criminal court. The court also reviews death penalty appeals. Relying solely on the power of incumbency and reputation, Holcomb received 45 % of the vote in last month's GOP primary, collecting almost 75,500 more votes than Keel (31 %) and eliminating District Judge Robert Francis of Dallas (24 %). With far fewer voters expected for the primary runoff, Keel hopes to motivate core Republicans by spotlighting Holcomb's history as a Democrat. Early voting begins Monday. "I think Republicans are beginning to understand that a lot of people who ran for the judiciary are not actually philosophical Republicans, but they put an 'R' by their name once it became fashionable statewide to be a Republican," Keel said. In contrast, Keel noted, he was a teen volunteer for Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign and was the first Republican elected sheriff in Democrat-dominated Travis County. He has served in the Texas House since 1997. Keel's court campaign has been endorsed by the Texas Alliance for Life, the National Rifle Association and more than 70 elected GOP officials statewide. Holcomb, elected to the court in 2000, denied that political expedience motivated his party switch last decade, saying his GOP credentials are solid. "I am a moderate Republican. But let me add this: I also believe that politics and who you are and the party you are in has no place in a judicial office, that you don't decide cases on the basis of any kind of agenda," Holcomb said. Holcomb was a Democratic judge on the 12th Court of Appeals in Tyler when he ran for the Court of Criminal Appeals in 1996 and lost. He switched parties and sought re-election to the 12th Court as a Republican in 1998, losing in the GOP primary. As the incumbent, Holcomb said, he has been too busy on court business to do much campaigning. His lack of fundraising reflects a longstanding personal policy, he said. "I never ask anybody for money," Holcomb said. "If I ask attorneys for money, well, then, they might be wanting favors. I just feel uncomfortable with it." If he is re-elected, Holcomb must retire in September 2008, when he turns 75. The governor would appoint his replacement. In the March primary, Holcomb won 91 % of counties that had more than 100 Republican voters. By targeting county-level party activists, Keel hopes to reverse the numbers. The winner will face Libertarian Dave Howard, a Round Rock lawyer, in the November general election. No Democrat is on the ballot. In another runoff election, Austin attorneys Will Wilson and Bill Davidson are vying for the Republican nomination for a seat on the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals, an Austin-based six-judge court covering 24 Central and West Texas counties. Wilson and Davidson were the winners in a four-candidate March primary, with Wilson earning 20,893 votes to Davidson's 15,119. Wilson has worked as a prosecutor and a judge and now represents small companies in civil disputes. Davidson is a former Travis County GOP chairman who works as a civil lawyer and is on the board of a local child development center. The winner will face Democrat Diane Henson, an Austin lawyer, in November for the chance to replace retiring Judge Bea Ann Smith, a Democrat. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 (i) Charles Holcomb (R) * Age: 72 * Occupation: Court of Criminal Appeals judge * Education: Undergraduate, Lee College and Lamar University; law degree, South Texas School of Law. * Experience: Elected to Court of Criminal Appeals in 2000; senior trial appellate judge, 1998-2000; 12th Court of Appeals judge, 1992-98; Cherokee County district attorney, 1981-91; Cherokee County attorney, 1974-81; Orange County court-at-law judge, 1967-72; city attorney for Deer Park and Orange, 1959-66. * Worth noting: If re-elected, must retire in September 2008, when he turns 75. * Web site: www.judgecharlesholcomb.org Terry Keel (R) * Age: 48 * Occupation: State representative, lawyer * Education: Bachelor's degree in English, University of Texas; law degree, University of Houston. * Experience: Five-term state representative for southwestern Travis County; Travis County sheriff, 1992-96; assistant district attorney, 1984-92. * Worth noting: Challenged candidacy petitions of his opponents, who regained ballot spots by appealing to Texas Supreme Court. * Web site: www.terrykeel.com 3rd Court of Appeals Place 3 Bill Davidson (R) * Age: 67 * Occupation: Lawyer * Education: Bachelor's and law degrees, University of Texas. * Experience: Has practiced civil law in Austin for 38 years, representing a broad range of clients, including developers and hospitals. * Worth noting: Chairman of board of directors of Youth Interactive, an Austin nonprofit group that sends volunteers into schools to teach children about nutrition and exercise; national track and field official and head pole vault official at UT meets. * Web site: www.davidsonforjudge.com Will Wilson (R) * Age: 56 * Occupation: Lawyer * Education: Bachelor's degree, Vanderbilt University; law degree, Southern Methodist University. * Experience: Represents small companies, including many biotechnology businesses, in commercial litigation; appointed to fill vacancy in 250th state District Court in Travis County, 1989-90; prosecuted major felonies for Dallas County district attorney's office, 1976-80. * Worth noting: Played football for Austin High School; former president of Austin High booster club; father, Will Wilson Sr., is a former Texas attorney general. (source: Austin American-Statesman) USA: Transcending the evil that men do IT WAS A PERFECT September morning. The crisp blue sky and a rising sun gently awakened me. My husband began to stir. A deep sense of contentment wrapped me as I emerged from my sleep. I basked in the delight of bonus time, those few moments before the alarm commands the day. Everything seemed right with the world. I lay totally unsuspecting of the events that would unfold in the day ahead and the years to follow. It was a Tuesday, the 11th of September, 2001. The alarm went off. Jim hit the snooze button, while I jumped up. The household tumbled into the familiar daily routines of a regular work-school week. I had to feed the dog and get everyone moving before heading off to teach my fifth grade class. My son, 17, awoke early to say goodbye to his dad before getting ready for school. My husband, a chief financial officer, was headed to Los Angeles on United 175 to make a presentation to investors. My 19-year-old daughter still lay sleeping in her college dorm room. My husband and I met at 18 as college freshmen. We were inseparable, or so we believed. We married at 22 and were days away from celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. But Zacarious Moussaoui and fellow Al Qaeda terrorists had plans, plans that destroyed my family and the life I had. There is no way I can begin to explain the full impact that the attacks had on me. The four and one-half years since 9/11 have been filled with immense pain and suffering. They have been filled with the loss of hope and faith. I have relived the horror of his final flight as it was diverted from Los Angeles to Lower Manhattan well over a thousand times. I continually question, ''Why didn't the airlines stop the terrorists from boarding the planes? Why did they not prevent them from carrying out their carnage?" There are no words that can convey the enormity of the terrorist acts. How does one begin to measure personal loss, what my family has missed in the past 4 1/2 years, and what we will miss in the years to come. My children have had to make their passage from teens to young adults without their dad. He will not be here to celebrate their joyous moments, to soften their heartaches, or counsel them in their journeys. 4 1/2 years later I am still in therapy. I was unable to continue in my job. I had to leave my home. I could not live there; I could not sell it. The God of my childhood died on September 11. He couldn't be all powerful as I had believed. Otherwise he would have done something. Today, I continue to seek the support of good priests to heal the damaged relationship with the God I so loved, to regain a deep and an abiding faith. Does Zacarious Moussaoui deserve the death penalty? Absolutely. He participated in a heinous, premeditated plot to use aircraft as weapons to bring destruction to America. Arrested on visa violations, he was not given the opportunity to carry out his plan, but on September 11, 2001, at 9:03 a.m. his brothers in terrorism destroyed the family I had. But there is a more important question: Should Moussaoui receive the death penalty? Absolutely not. Although Moussaoui deserves to die, the people of the United States should not impose the death penalty upon him. My concern is not so much with Moussaoui. My concern is with the 9/11 survivors, the families and friends of the victims, and the people of our nation. It is a human response to be enraged against those who plotted to take the lives of so many innocent victims. To strike back is an instinctual human reaction toward such an outrageous violation against mankind. Yet to impose the death penalty diminishes our own humanity. Do we want to characterize ourselves as a nation committed to pure vengeance with nothing more to be gained? For we surely cannot think that imposing the death penalty will act as a deterrent against other terrorists. Cloaked in the rationalization of carrying forth the will of God, the terrorists let their fear and hatred consume their last ounce of humanity. Let us not follow in their footsteps. Let us instead distance ourselves from the evil wrapped in their warped behavior. Let us maintain a strand of humanity that will bond us to the value of life. Let us define ourselves as principled people not acting out of fear and hatred, but a people who under the most challenging of circumstances can transcend evil and prevail with reason and justice. Let us strive to have love for one another. (source: Boston Globe - Elizabeth Hayden resides in Boston) ******************* Congress Focuses on Cameras at the High Court 10 years ago, Supreme Court Justice David Souter said cameras would roll into the Supreme Court "over my dead body." Souter is still standing, but votes by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week may have brought the day closer when high court proceedings will be covered electronically. Bills aimed specifically at requiring the televising of the Supreme Court (S. 1768) and permitting it at federal courts in general, including the Supreme Court (S. 829), were endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee March 30. The full House last fall passed a bill (H.R. 1751) similar to the more general legislation, which would give the chief judge or justice in each federal court broad discretion to allow or bar camera access. "The judicial branch may be the only unelected branch of government, but that doesn't mean they should operate in secret," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, cosponsor of S. 829. But advocates in the long battle in favor of cameras in the courts are not popping the champagne just yet. C-SPAN vice president and counsel Bruce Collins expects the judiciary to push back against the legislation before any final action. "As good an idea as this is, there's a long road to go yet," says Collins. But the bipartisan 12-6 committee vote in favor of the Supreme Court bill suggests some senators won't give in easily to pressure from judges. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., sponsored the bill, not out of love for the Court, but to make the point that if the justices are going to behave like a "super-legislature," they should operate more in the open. Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, is hopeful some form of camera-friendly legislation will pass this session, and she hopes to meet with Senate leadership soon to expedite consideration on the floor. "We want to strike while the iron is hot," says Cochran. "The hearings we've had on 2 Supreme Court nominees in recent months have brought into sharp relief how strange it is not to have broadcast coverage of the third branch of government." (source: Legal Times) CALIFORNIA: $250K reward for Laci Peterson's 'real killer' A prosecutor and a juror who figured in Scott Peterson's death sentence scoffed at a $250,000 reward that Peterson's family and supporters offered Friday for information exposing "the true criminals." "It's easy to offer that kind of money when they know they're never going to be called upon to spend it," said Birgit Fladager, 1 of 3 Stanislaus County prosecutors in the 2004 trial. Peterson, 33, was convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner. Their bodies were recovered on the east shore of San Francisco Bay nearly four months after Peterson's solo fishing trip the day his wife vanished, Christmas Eve 2002. His parents and several other family members have maintained his innocence since Peterson, 8 months pregnant, disappeared. "All of us remain deeply committed to Scott's innocence and to finding Laci's real killer," Lee Peterson said in a news release. Mike Belmessieri, one of the jurors who voted for Peterson's execution, affirmed Friday that the panel came to the right conclusion. "Denial is a very, very powerful thing," Belmessieri said, referring to Lee and Jackie Peterson. "They need to click their heels 3 times and tell themselves they're not in Kansas anymore. As sad as it is, Scott did it." Death sentences in California are automatically appealed and can take a decade or more to wind through the courts. Peterson's family hired lawyers specializing in execution appeals in hopes of speeding his release. The Petersons' offer is the case's first "for information leading to an arrest and conviction," according to the Web site, ScottPetersonAppeal.org. Other rewards were offered early in the case: $1,000 for information on a burglary across the street from the Petersons' Modesto home soon after the mother-to-be vanished, $500,000 for her safe return and $50,000 for recovery of her body. 5 people split the $50,000 reward in January 2005, a month after jurors recommended execution. Marc Klaas, a victim rights advocate whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was murdered in 1993, called the reward offer absurd. "Scott Peterson murdered his wife, the jury convicted him, he's sitting on death row in San Quentin and the less the world hears about this piece of garbage, the better." Fladager, who is running for Stanislaus County district attorney, and Klaas questioned whether the Petersons put the money in an escrow account. "If not," Klaas said, "how real is it?" Attempts to reach Lee Peterson by telephone were unsuccessful. Carole Carrington, who has extensive experience with large rewards in violent crime cases, said she feels for the Petersons but doesn't expect their offer to bear fruit. Carrington's daughter and granddaughter and a young woman who was a family friend were murdered on a 1999 Yosemite sightseeing trip. Carrington subsequently set up a Modesto-based foundation that finances rewards throughout the United States for missing people. "If (the Petersons) truly believe he's innocent, I can't blame them," Carrington said. "But I think the reaction of most people who followed the trial would be the same as mine: They're barking up the wrong tree. "That's the way I felt about O.J. Simpson," Carrington continued, referring to the ex-football star. Simpson was acquitted in the murder of his wife and her friend, but was found responsible for their deaths in a civil lawsuit. Simpson's vow to pursue his wife's killer has been a standing joke on television talk shows. "He's looking for his wife's murderer on every golf course in the country. I guess Scott Peterson would be too, if he could," Carrington said, recalling Peterson's fondness for the links. "Fortunately, he had a good jury." Belmessieri, the Peterson juror, said he never has doubted that the panel arrived at the right verdict. Several others agreed in December interviews at the 1-year anniversary of their death-sentence decree. "The fact is, he killed his wife and kid," Belmessieri said. "Maybe (his parents) will die with the thought that their son couldn't do that because he's the golden boy, but he's not." On the Net: ScottPetersonAppeal.org. (source: Modesto Bee)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, USA, CALIF.
Rick Halperin Sat, 1 Apr 2006 12:02:42 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
