[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, N.C., UTAH, FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 6



USA:

Tearful witnesses recall 9/11 at US death penalty trial


In Alexandria, Virginia, jurors in the trial of confessed September 11
conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui heard tearful testimony Thursday by a woman
who saw people jump from the burning World Trade Center and a police
officer who lost his wife in the attack.

The first witness to testify in the sentencing phase of Moussaoui's death
penalty trial - the only US trial on charges related to the 2001 attacks -
was former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In a graphic account, he relived the morning of the attacks for the
12-member jury, most viscerally when he described seeing people plunging
from the mangled, flaming twin towers to their death.

'My eyes just caught a man ... and I realized that I was watching this man
throw himself off, fleeing the flames and smoke. I froze,' said Giuliani,
who was mayor at the time.

Most harrowing, he said, was seeing 2 people jump who appeared to be
holding hands.

'That memory, of all memories that stuck in your mind, comes back to me
every day,' Giuliani said. 'This was a war. It was a battle. We were
attacked.'

Moussaoui, 37, faces death or life in prison. He pleaded guilty last year
to six counts of conspiracy related to the September 11 attacks, which
killed nearly 3,000 people.

To bolster their case for execution, prosecutors also had the court show
the jurors videos of people jumping and of each plane hitting the twin
towers.

Tamar Rosbrook, who was on a business trip to New York and watched from a
nearby hotel's 35th floor as people fell from the twin towers, repeatedly
choked up and halted her testimony, at one point sobbing quietly for some
time.

'I started screaming, 'These are people, that's a person,'' said Rosbrook,
who was with her husband.

Fighting back tears, she recalled watching a man on a ledge trying to
decide where to jump. 'I knew that this was not going to work out for
him,' she said.

New York police officer James Smith broke down in tears while talking
about his wife, a fellow police officer who died trying to rescue people
from the World Trade Center.

None of the witnesses directly implicated Moussaoui, who showed no emotion
during the testimony but appeared to listen intently during Giuliani's
statement.

Prosecutors allege that Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent,
contributed to the September 11 carnage because he withheld knowledge of
plot after his arrest 3 weeks before the attacks.

To obtain a death sentence, prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui was
responsible for at least 1 death on September 11. In a key step Monday,
the jury found him eligible to be executed.

Prosecutors planned to elicit testimony from up to 40 family members of
victims and to play recordings of frantic calls to New York emergency
services after the planes hit the towers.

The jury will also hear the previously unreleased cockpit voice recording
of Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers rose up
against the hijackers. The 4th plane hit the Pentagon military
headquarters just outside Washington.

In opening remarks Thursday, prosecutor Robert Spencer told the jury, 'You
will hear about the horror of the murders and the enormity of the attacks.
Those voices, that evidence will be all you need.'

In stunning testimony last month, Moussaoui said he knew of the two planes
that hit the World Trade Center and claimed he was meant to fly a fifth
plane into the White House on September 11. He also admitted he lied to
FBI agents about the plot.

His court-appointed defence team, whose advice he has generally refused,
have sought to cast doubt on his mental soundness.

Lawyer Gerald Zerkin said Thursday that Moussaoui appeared to be
schizophrenic and urged jurors to consider 'the possibility of a sentence
less than death.'

(source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur)






NORTH CAROLINA----impending execution

Death row inmate seeks DNA test to avoid May 12 execution


A death row inmate scheduled for execution next month has asked Governor
Easley to order a D-N-A test to support his claim that he didn't kill a
Gates County woman and her daughter.

Jerry Conner is scheduled to die May 12th for the 1990 murder and rape of
a Minh Rogers and her 16-year-old daughter, Linda. A Superior Court judge
has denied Conner's request for D-N-A testing of semen found on the
daughter.

Conner's attorneys and prosecutors are scheduled to make their cases at a
clemency meeting May second with the governor and his staff.

Testing of the D-N-A in 1991 wasn't conclusive and Conner's lawyers say
better techniques are now available.

(source: Associated Press)






UTAH:

Multiple Murderer Appeals Death Sentence before Utah Supreme Court


A multiple murderer on Utah's death row argued before the Utah Supreme
Court Tuesday, Apr. 4, 2006, for another sentencing hearing because his
original trial attorney offered ineffective counsel.

The appellant, Von Taylor, escaped from a prison halfway house in 1990 and
broke into a Summit County cabin. When the owners of the cabin returned
home, authorities say Taylor shot 3 of them, killing 2, set the cabin on
fire and kidnapped 2 daughters of the cabin's owners.

Taylor appealed on several grounds, but the bulk of his argument lies in
claiming his initial counsel, Elliot Levine, was ineffective. Taylor
claims Levine refused to bring in medical witnesses to establish Taylor's
mental illness. Taylor's attorney Richard Mauro argued that the jury would
not have sentenced Taylor the death penalty had Levine done this.

The original case was heard in a state district court in 1991.

This is not the 1st time Taylor has appealed his case to the state's
Supreme Court. As required in death penalty cases in the state of Utah,
his case was automatically appealed to the Supreme Court after a jury
recommended the death penalty in 1997. The Court upheld the sentencing and
rejected Taylor's grounds for appeal. In oral arguments heard Tuesday,
Mauro acknowledged this is not the first time his client had appeared
before the Court. Mauro also acknowledged the effect of his client's
previous appeal on Utah law.

"This case as much as any has prompted wide-spread changes on how death
penalty cases are handled in the state of Utah," Mauro said.

Also in his opening statement Mauro said Taylor is seeking at least a new
sentencing phase and at most a new trial.

Much of the current appeal centered on Levine's decision not to introduce
mental health information taken from the psychological evaluations of
Taylor. These evaluations cited Taylor's drug use and participation in
witchcraft and Satan worship that involved the drinking of animal blood.
Mauro argued that Taylor's initial counsel should have at least explored
Taylor's mental health issues in greater detail before deciding to exclude
them from his case. Specifically, Mauro criticized Levine's failure to
explore either Taylor's history of alcohol abuse or the mental health
issues his family all suffered.

"Here's ultimately what happened in this case," Mauro said, "there were
six mitigating circumstances, a proper defense would argue 4 of those, but
trial counsel argued none of those."

When similar complaints were brought up during his initial appeal,
Christine Durham, then a Supreme Court justice and now the Court's chief
justice, shot down these similar arguments in her ruling that year.

"Levine quite plausibly decided that satanic worship and blood drinking
did not comport to the boy-next-door image he hoped to portray," Durham
said.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Brunker argued for the state that
Taylor's original trial counsel made a legitimate decision to not explore
his client's mental health. Brunker then cited the Court's previous ruling
as evidence of the legitimacy of trial counsel's choice. Durham, who
drafted the opinion, objected to Brunker's use of her opinion as evidence.

After Durham's interruption, she and Brunker argued for 4 minutes about
whether the previous opinion can be used as precedence. Ultimately,
Brunker said the 2 should agree to disagree, and Brunker moved on to
another rebuttal to Mauro's statements.

Brunker said introducing new evidence would bring graphic details of the
case that would harm more than help the defense's case.

After oral arguments Tuesday, the Supreme Court will now review the case
and make a decision as to whether Taylor deserves a new sentencing hearing
or new trial.

(source: (Brigham Young Univ.) NewsNet)






FLORIDA----new death sentence

Death sentence handed down in stomping murder of Hollywood retiree


Gabby Tennis was sentenced to death on Thursday for the stomping murder of
a 91-year-old disabled war veteran at his Hollywood home.

In sentencing the 21-year-old Tennis, Broward Circuit Judge Susan Lebow
said the victim, retiree Albert Vessella, was no physical match for Tennis
and cited the deliberate infliction of injury on a helpless old man - a
broken neck and ribs and blows so hard that they left the imprints of
Tennis' sneakers on the body.

Tennis, who worked as a roofer, was convicted of first-degree murder last
September for the stomping death of Vessella, a Crime Watch president,
during a home invasion robbery in June 2003.

The defendant and his ex-girlfriend, Sophia Adams, 19, who pleaded guilty
to her role in the killing and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison,
went to Vessella's house to steal money to pay a dowry demanded by Adams'
mother, Liza Boltos. The jury recommended death.

Last December, Tennis appeared at a hearing before Lebow and pleaded that
his life be spared.

"Please don't kill me," Tennis said to Lebow. "I don't want to die. I want
to live."

(source: Sun-Sentinel)