April l4
TEXAS: Protest hits Texas death row A spirited protest against illegal and inhumane living conditions on death row April 8 drew a favorable response from passing cars as well as shoppers in the rural east Texas town of Livingston. Activists from Houston and Austin met in downtown Livingston for a demonstration in support of prisoners rights, the first ever at the Polk County Courthouse. Carrying signs that read, "Honk to stop prison torture!" and "Isolation is cruel and unusual punishment!" the demonstrators were pleasantly surprised when passers-by honked and shouted in support. "East Texas is Klan country. I never expected so many people supporting us in a town where many are employed by the prison system," said Njeri Shakur of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement in Houston. Local residents have told activists that the only group remembered for demonstrating in the town square is the Ku Klux Klan, which holds recruiting rallies wearing their hoods and robes. Buoyed by the positive response, the activists then went to the office of the Polk County Enterprise, the local newspaper. When the publisher, Alvin Holley, was asked if the newspaper could give some coverage to the torture going on in the prison, he responded, "They deserve it!" "We told him that people in his city supported the idea of stopping the torture, but he told us he didn't give a damn," Casey Davis told Workers World. He then said he would have the whole group arrested if they didn't leave immediately. Green Party activist Art Browning asked the editor, "You support torture and do you go to church on Sunday?" Again the response was a threat of arrest. The demonstrators then drove in a car caravan for the four miles from the town to the prison. The 400 men on death row are housed at the Polunsky Unit outside of Livingston, 80 miles north of Houston. They were moved here in 2000, after an attempted prison escape by 6 prisoners at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, where death row had been housed for decades. One man, Martin Gurule, did escape, but his body was found a few days later in a river. The other 5 never made it over the fences. Families join protest Joined by several families of people on death row, the protest began directly across the highway from the prison. People carried balloons and colorful signs encouraging motorists to honk. Many did honk their horns and some even stopped to speak with protesters. "Tropic Blue," a world beat band from Houston, provided live political music and the demonstration created a lively and spirited sight across from the super max prison housing over 2,000 men, 400 of them awaiting execution. As families entered and left the prison for visitation, they honked, smiled and shouted approval. Speakers from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement took the microphone between songs to agitate and educate the crowd and the families in passing cars. They saluted the men on the row with the D.R.I.V.E. Movement who are protesting inside the prison by refusing to move from their cells for showers or visits, thereby causing guards to have to summon higher officials. Then these men enumerate their grievances and ask for a change. In a closing ceremony, protesters released 6 bright purple helium-filled balloons, calling out for each one. The 1st balloon was for the total abolition of the death penalty. The 2nd was for those men with the D.R.I.V.E. (See www.drivemovement.org) The 3rd was for Harvey "Tee" Earvin, a founder of the P.U.R.E. organization on death row, Panthers United for Revolutionary Education, whose birthday was that day. The next balloon was for abolitionist Njeri Shakur, who has fought against the death penalty for over a decade and was also celebrating her birthday. The fifth balloon was for all the activists from Houston and Austin who had given up their Saturday to stand in solidarity with the brothers on death row. The last balloon was released for all the families who joined in the protest and those who support their loved ones living on the most active death row in the country. Families of Louis Perez, Joseph Nichols-Bey, and Ramon Hernandez and a friend of prisoner Sam Bustamante attended the protest and then went into the prison to visit. Also participating in the demonstration were members of the New Black Panther Party of Houston. The prison board can change death row conditions if they so choose. But for the last 5 years the board has chosen to allow these men to be tortured and develop serious mental illnesses. The April 8 demonstrators vowed to have another protest outside death row in the fall and to also protest at the July meeting of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. (source: Worker's World) SOUTH DAKOTA: Vigil Against Death Penalty----This summer 1 of the 4 men on death row in South Dakota could be executed. Elijah Page was convicted of killing a Spearfish man in 2001. He gave up his appeals and is now scheduled to be executed in August. Friday dozens of people gathered at an annual vigil to pray for Page and the other men on death row. Outside the barbed wire fence are those who are praying for the four men on death row. Nearly 100 people gathered to sing songs and give personal testimony condemning the death penalty. They say that the death penalty is not the way to stop violence. Reverend Marcia Sietstra says, "Criminals do need to pay for wrong doing, but is it not also taking ones life to put them in prison for the rest of their life, to take away their freedom?" Today's gathering was also a chance for people to sign the Declaration of Life. It says if you are murdered, the person accused of murder should not be put to death. Many signed the formal affidavit to send the message that they believe society's answer to crime should not be another killing. Jill Parsons who attended the vigil says, "As a younger generation we're who's gonna be leading this country soon and if we can make our voice be known hopefully our voice will follow though in the future." The vigil was sponsored by the Interfaith Task Force. This is the 9th year the task force has sponsored the event. (source: Keloland TV) CALIFORNIA: Appeals court upholds death sentence in '85 Hillsborough murder A federal appeals court today upheld the death sentence of condemned killer David Allen Raley for the 1985 kidnap and murder of a Peninsula teenager at a deserted Hillsborough mansion, pushing him near the front of the line among the more than 600 death row inmates awaiting execution. In an 18-page ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Raley's arguments that he received inadequate legal representation in the penalty phase of his 1988 trial and that the jury instructions tainted the death verdict. Raley is now the closest to execution of any Santa Clara County death row inmate since California restored capital punishment in 1978. Raley is on death row for kidnapping and repeatedly stabbing 2 Peninsula high school girls at the old Carolands Mansion, where he worked as a security guard. He drove both victims, Janine Grinsell and Laurie McKenna, to a remote Santa Clara County road and dumped them in a ravine, where he left them for dead. McKenna climbed to the road and was found alive the next morning. Grinsell was still alive, but died later that day at the hospital with 41 stab wounds and a fractured skull. Raley is unlikely to face a firm execution date until at least next year. His lawyers can still ask a 15-judge panel of the 9th Circuit to review the case, and petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a reprieve. But losing in the 9th Circuit is often the last chance to overturn a death sentence for California death row inmates. The state also has a de facto freeze on executions while a San Jose federal judge considers a challenge to California's lethal injection procedures. (source: Mercury News) ************************************ U.S. COURT UPHOLDS DEATH PENALTY IN CAROLANDS MURDER The death sentence of a former security guard who kidnapped and stabbed a 16-year-old girl in the basement of the Carolands mansion in Hillsborough in 1985 was upheld by a federal appeals court in San Francisco. David Raley, now 44, was given the sentence in Santa Clara County Superior Court for kidnapping and murdering a 16-year-old girl identified as J.G. He was also found guilty of the kidnapping, attempted murder and oral copulation of another girl, 17-year-old L.M. The sentence was unanimously upheld by a 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the ruling, Raley worked as a security guard at the mansion. The building was not generally open to the public but he occasionally gave unauthorized tours. After the girls arrived at the mansion on Feb. 5, 1985, and asked for a tour, Raley took them to the basement, where he handcuffed them, sexually assaulted L.M. and beat and stabbed them, the ruling said. He then took them in the trunk of his car to a remote location southeast of San Jose and threw them down a ravine. L.M. managed to crawl up the hill and find help the next morning. Both girls were taken to the emergency room and J.G. died during surgery. Raley argued in his appeal that his trial lawyers were incompetent because they did not present testimony of medical experts who could have supported his claim he had a mental defect. But the appeals court said the defense lawyers made a "reasonable strategic choice" because 3 defense experts who examined Raley before trial came back with equivocal findings that could have damaged his claim of having a mental defect. Raley's attorney, Robert Bacon, said he will ask an expanded 15-judge panel of the 9th Circuit to reconsider the case and if necessary will also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Raley took his case to the federal courts after losing his appeal in the California Supreme Court. (source: Bay City News) NORTH CAROLINA----impending execution Inmate disputes N.C. proposal to monitor execution Lawyers for a condemned inmate objected Friday to the state's proposal to use a brain wave monitor to be sure the execution is as painless as possible. In a filing in U.S. District Court, attorneys for 61-year-old Willie Brown Jr. said the state's plan to use a bispectral index monitor to be sure Brown is unconscious doesn't comply with the court's order. Brown was sentenced to death for the 1983 slaying of a woman during a convenience store robbery in Martin County and is scheduled to die Friday at 2 a.m. Correction officials told U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Howard that a doctor and a nurse normally in the execution chamber's observation room would watch the BIS monitor as well as a heart monitor and order more drugs if Brown showed signs of wakefulness. Defense lawyer Don Cowan said Friday he didn't know when Howard would rule or whether there would be a hearing on the issue before the scheduled execution. If the federal judge accepts the state proposal, the defense could appeal to higher federal courts. Howard said he would stop the execution if he weren't satisfied that Brown would be unconscious when fatal drugs were administered and that properly trained medical personnel were present. "Defendants' proposed use of the BIS monitor - in isolation, without direct monitoring or the exercise of skill or judgment by personnel with appropriate training in anesthesia - is utterly inconsistent" with the intent of the device," Cowan wrote. The defense had raised the issue because witnesses to previous executions said the some inmates might have been suffering. Dr. Orin F. Guidry of New Orleans, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said the BIS is intended solely for use in surgical settings and not for executions. "These two situations are nothing alike and should never be compared," Guidry said in a written statement. A state correction official said the BIS monitor hadn't been used before in a North Carolina execution. ON THE NET American Society of Anesthesiologists: http://www.asahq.org N.C. Department of Correction: http://www.doc.state.nc.us (source: Associated Press)
