April 10 SOUTH CAROLINA: Death penalty cases flooding S.C.----Lexington County, with 10 pending trials, to start jury selection today to resolve 2002 killing Death penalty cases -- 12 death penalty cases are awaiting trial in the 11th Circuit - 10 of them in Lexington County. As many as 5 trials - including 2 in Edgefield County - could be heard this year. Edgefield County hasn't tried a death penalty case since 1993; Lexington County since 2003. "If you do three in a year, you're doing 1 every 120 days," 11th Circuit Deputy Solicitor Dayton Riddle said. "That's a brutal year." And it begins today, with jury selection in Lexington County's 1st death penalty trial in 3 years. Richland County, in the 5th Circuit, has 4 pending death penalty trials, with the 1st scheduled for July 16, according to court records. Death penalty cases are the most complex and expensive in criminal court. If jurors are sequestered, renting hotels rooms and feeding them can cost taxpayers up to $100,000 per case, said Beth Carrigg, Lexington County clerk of court. Seven of the 10 Lexington County cases are retrials after convictions or sentences were overturned by the state Supreme Court. One defendant, Raymond Patterson, has been tried and sentenced to death 3 times for the same murder, the 1984 slaying of a West Virginia man. 5 people have been executed from Lexington County since 1985. 10 people are on death row from the 11th Circuit. Along with paying for the prosecution, taxpayers often end up paying for the defense. Patton Adams, director of the state Indigent Defense Commission, said about 85 percent of all defendants in criminal court are indigent. The commission, which operates from state money, has paid $1.4 million on its 15 pending capital cases statewide, Adams said. The most expensive case costs $244,000, with about $178,000 going to attorney fees. The difference between "trying a murder and trying a death penalty case is about the same as putting a Band-Aid on a cut and doing neurosurgery," said Columbia defense attorney Bill Nettles, who has tried 7 capital cases. In the Lexington trial that starts today, Kevin Mercer, 28, is charged with murder in connection with the 2002 shooting death of 35-year-old Tracy Lamar Davis, who was an Army sergeant stationed at Fort Jackson. Eleventh Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers' office plans to try 3 to 5 death penalty cases this year, including the Edgefield cases, Riddle said. Myers was unavailable for comment for this story because of the April 3 death of his wife. Two of the cases have been assigned to other solicitors because of a conflict of interest in Myers office. Those cases will be tried in Lexington County but handled by another prosecutor. Each trial can take up to 3 weeks, including jury selection, the guilt phase and the penalty phase. In a death penalty trial, a jury, not a judge, decides the sentence. For the Mercer trial, Carrigg said the county sent about 350 summons to potential jurors - twice as many as normal. Most death penalty juries are sequestered, and the clerk of court's office is responsible for providing jurors food, hotel accommodations and entertainment. For example, Lexington County began preparing for the Mercer trial 8 weeks ago, Carrigg said. 7 SLED agents will stay with the jurors at all times. "It's more than we would like for it to be," Carrigg said about the number of death penalty cases in Lexington County. "If we could try three a year, that takes four years to get rid of those 12 cases. And in the meantime, they are just sitting in jail, and the citizens are footing the bill." Mercer has complained many times about how long it has taken his case to come to trial. In a letter dated Aug. 2, 2005, to 11th Circuit Judge William Keesley, Mercer wrote, "either my case get called up for court or I ask the courts to set me a bond, so that I can go home to my family!" Delays have been an issue in the case of Gene Tony Cooper, who was sentenced to death in 1991. In 1994, the state Supreme Court reversed the sentence, ruling that the judge should have allowed Cooper to speak to the jury during the guilt phase of his trial. In August 2002, the court also reversed Cooper's conviction on the non-capital charges of armed robbery and conspiracy and ordered a new trial. His capital murder conviction still stands. First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe will try the case in May. Cooper is represented by David Bruck, director of the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse and a longtime foe of Myers in capital cases. Bruck has repeatedly filed motions to dismiss the charges against Cooper, claiming Myers violated Coopers constitutional right to a speedy trial. In South Carolina, prosecutors, not judges, control the court docket in criminal court. Court documents show that in 2004, Myers said during a hearing that he would try Cooper's case in the spring of that year. In April 2005, Judge William Keesley ordered that the case be heard before the end of the year. 3 months later, Myers recused himself from the case because one of his deputy solicitors, Rick Hubbard, was the law clerk to the trial judge during Cooper's 1st case. Bruck again asked Keesley to dismiss the charges and requested the trial begin before classes started at Washington and Lee University law school, where Bruck teaches. Keesley denied the motion, citing at least 8 pending death penalty cases that were competing for scheduling. He ruled that while the court has "frequently expressed its deep concern about the length of time that people accused of crimes are being required to sit in jail (in this case on death row) awaiting trial ... there are many reasons for this situation, including the explosive growth of this county." Death penalty cases can face delays at all stages, Riddle said, including the clerk of courts office assembling a jury pool, the solicitor's office not having enough people to process the cases, and defense attorneys with scheduling conflicts. "There's a different number of bottlenecks that you can hit." (source: The State) USA: Use death penalty The death penalty is good because criminals should get the punishment they deserve. Why shouldn't a murderer go through the same pain as his or her victim? There are many methods used for the death penalty. The United States uses lethal injection, electrocution, gas chambers, hanging or firing squads. The majority of the states use lethal injection. Some people think the death penalty is horrible. People against the death penalty think, "Why should we kill another person, even if they deserve it?" However, most people who kill others don't care about their own family and their own lives. They suppose their victim won't care either. ELIZABETH ODD Age 14 Mount Laurel (source: Letter to the Editor, Courier Post) ILLINOIS: Illinois Supreme Court upholds death penalty for Stark County man In Springfield, the Illinois Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence for a man who killed a police officer and 2 of his neighbors in Stark County. Lawyers for Curtis Thompson had argued the death penalty was excessive because he was mentally disturbed. But the Supreme Court ruled 5-to-1 that the shootings were part of an escalating pattern of violence by Thompson. He had a criminal record of assaults and other misdemeanors dating to 1967. His actions turned deadly in 2002, when a deputy visited Thompson's home about a warrant. Thompson killed the deputy, then shot 2 neighbors and led police on a low-speech chase through town. Justice Mary Ann McMorrow voted to overturn Thompson's death sentence. She says his mental problems make life in prison the appropriate sentence. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Ex-death row inmate to speak in focus on capital punishment As the modern era of executions began in Utah in January 1977 with the death-by-firing-squad of Gary Gilmore, a man named Gary Beeman was sitting on Ohio's death row. "I remember I stayed up and listened to it on the radio," Beeman said of Gilmore's execution, the nation's 1st in a decade. "It was a shock, it was a real shock." While Beeman awaited his own date with death, he, unlike Gilmore, was armed with the knowledge that he was innocent. After he had spent four years in prison for aggravated murder, Beeman won a new trial, served largely as his own attorney and was acquitted in 1979. Beeman showed the 2nd jury that the state's key witness in the 1st trial had bragged to 5 witnesses that he was the real killer and was framing Beeman. Now Beeman of Niagara Falls, N.Y., is back in Ohio as part of a speaking tour of colleges and universities. He'll speak Tuesday before a criminal justice class at Sinclair Community College. It's the 1st time Beeman has taken his story to the public. He said his aim is to start a dialogue on capital punishment. Beeman says the death penalty "is totally unfair. It's wrong. It's about power. It's not about truth, it's not about justice, it's not about right." The rate of false capital convictions is unacceptably high, he said, noting there have been 5 exonerations in Ohio since 1979 and 20 executions since 1999. "What if 1 out of 4 air bags fail? 1 out of 4 airplanes crash? Nobody would put up with that (failure rate)," Beeman said. "And we're talking about people's lives." Sinclair instructor Cynthia Baugh-Gunder said Beeman's message "is not so much to abolish the death penalty, but that the system is flawed." After well-publicized exonerations here and in other states, she said, "people in Ohio are starting to question not whether the death penalty is wrong, but is the system wrong." (source: Dayton Daily News) FLORIDA: A matter of law and death As much as Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature would like to provide death row inmates with representation on the cheap, Florida courts are nobly standing in the way. The latest ruling by a circuit court in Leon County rejects an attempt by lawmakers to punish lawyers who provide their clients with legal assistance beyond a set number of compensated hours. It is a victory for due process and the proper administration of justice. If this state has learned anything through the multiple exonerations of prisoners through DNA evidence, it is that the criminal justice system is fallible. Providing additional due process before taking a prisoner's life helps ensure that the right person was convicted and the procedure was fair. But for years the governor has tried to find ways to handicap the attorneys who do post-conviction death penalty appeals. He and Republican lawmakers have been frustrated by the success rate of the state offices of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel in suspending executions and getting death sentences set aside due to faulty process. In 2003, Bush engineered the closure of one of the three highly specialized CCRC offices, replacing it with a list of private lawyers who generally had little experience handling death row appeals. The attorneys who signed up to be on the registry had to promise to limit their representation to 840 compensated hours. It was a figure that didn't come close to the number of hours that an average death penalty case requires, which was closer to 3,000. The idea was to provide a lawyer, but not a very good one. Last year, Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero described the legal work of the registry lawyers as "the worst lawyering I've seen." The cap on fees was a clear attempt to keep attorneys from providing their clients with the full defense they are entitled to and was soon abrogated by the Florida Supreme Court. But not to be outmaneuvered, the Legislature came right back and adjusted the law to bar any attorney who requested fees above the stated maximums from remaining on the state registry. Late last month, Leon Circuit Judge Terry Lewis set aside that provision, too. There is no reason for the state to appeal this latest ruling. Florida courts are not going to allow the Legislature to direct attorneys to violate their professional responsibilities toward their clients. Experience has demonstrated that post-conviction death penalty work is most effectively handled by lawyers who specialize in the practice. To its credit, the Legislature is considering legislation (H.B. 325, C.S./S.B. 360) to substantially raise the minimum standards for all registry attorneys. Still, the CCRC model serves justice and Florida's court system best. The state should reopen the office that was closed. (source: Editorial, St. Petersburg Times)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.C., USA, ILL., OHIO, FLA.
Rick Halperin Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:01:28 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
