[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., KY., MD., VA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 15


TEXAS----impending execution

Attorneys again say serial killer is insane----New filing comes as
execution date nears, but DA calls argument bogus


Serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz believes he is an invincible
"man-angel" and that the deadly drugs to be administered at his execution
will merely put him to sleep for 3 days, defense attorneys argue in the
latest effort to show he is insane.

Harris County's district attorney maintains, however, that the so-called
"railway killer" is merely showing his skill at manipulating people.

Two previous efforts have failed to prove Resendiz is insane and therefore
protected from execution under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1986 Ford v.
Wainwright ruling. Jurors rejected his plea of not guilty by reason of
insanity, and later mental health evaluations found him competent to waive
his appeals.

In his new filing in the court of state District Judge William Harmon,
attorney Jack Zimmermann says Resendiz is schizophrenic, does not accept
that he will die and does not associate the punishment with his offense.

Resendiz, 45, is set to die May 10 for the December 1998 murder of Baylor
College of Medicine researcher Dr. Claudia Benton. The 39-year-old mother
of 2 young daughters was stabbed, bludgeoned and raped in her West
University Place home.

Expert cites 'delusions'

Resendiz, who crisscrossed the continent on trains, has confessed to nine
murders, including the pickax slaying of Rice University graduate student
Noemi Dominguez and the sledgehammer killings of the Rev. Norman Sirnic
and his wife, Karen, in their home in Weimar.

Authorities say they believe Resendiz may have killed 14 or more people
during his 2-year rampage.

Zimmermann's filing cites the findings of 2 mental health experts who
examined Resendiz at the Harris County Jail, once when the killer was
taking anti-psychosis medications and once when he was not.

Dr. Pablo Stewart, an associate psychology professor at the University of
California School of Medicine, found on the second visit that "delusions
had completely taken over Mr. Resendiz's thought processes."

"He is aware that the government will put a needle in his arm, but does
not understand that he will be executed because he is convinced he will
not die," Stewart noted in the document. " ... He believes the government
wants to kill him because it is controlled by the devil, homosexuals,
witches and sorcerers."

Stewart wrote that Resendiz told him: "When I awaken, God wants me to
fight the Arabs that are attacking Israel. I'll sleep for three days and
my body will disappear, only to reappear in another location."

Antonio Puente, a University of North Carolina psychology professor who
also evaluated Resendiz, noted in the filing that the killer has
schizophrenia and an organic brain disorder.

District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said Friday, however, that the defense
claim is unfounded.

"Like many other serial killers," he said, "Mr. Resendiz is a manipulator
... Someone who has killed as many people as Resendiz should appreciate
the finality of death."

During a hearing Thursday, Harmon requested that state experts also
evaluate the killer and submit their findings to his court by May 1.

Rosenthal said his office will do all it can to complete the testing
without postponing the Mexican national's execution.

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is cruel and unusual punishment to
execute the mentally retarded, those who killed when they were juveniles
and mentally incompetent people who do not know they are about to be
executed or why.

Self-mutilations

In his filing, Zimmermann noted that during his 6 years on death row,
Resendiz has been admitted to the prison psychiatric unit 8 times. He said
Resendiz has mutilated himself 28 times, using a razor to cut his face,
arm, head, legs, feet, neck, stomach and penis.

For much of his imprisonment, he has received medications to control
delusions, Zimmermann said.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Murdered officer's son is now a prosecutor


He was 11 years old when his father, Waco police Sgt. Bobby Vicha, and his
grandparents were murdered by Billie Wayne Coble at their homes in Axtell.
Now, with Coble's 16-year stint on death row perhaps coming to an end with
an Aug. 30 execution date, 27-year-old J.R. Vicha is working as a
prosecutor, fulfilling his childhood goal of following his father into law
enforcement.

Vicha started work Monday as an assistant to McLennan County District
Attorney John Segrest after brief stints as staff attorney for the Brazos
River Authority and as a juvenile probation officer.

With a little more seasoning, it might not be too much longer before Vicha
starts prosecuting felons in the same courtroom where Coble was sentenced
to death in 1990. Vicha and Segrest say it was pure coincidence that Judge
George Allen set Coble's execution date on March 23, 3 weeks before Vicha
started work in the district attorneys office.

Vicha applied about 6 months ago for a job with Segrest's office, but it
was for a position handling Child Protective Services cases, and Vicha
wanted to prosecute criminals.

"This whole thing is pure coincidence," the unassuming Vicha said. "I
don't really care for any extra attention for anything. I just want to
come in here and try to do a good job."

Segrest said he had known Vicha's dad, the 18-year Waco police veteran,
"for just about forever." But the younger Vicha got the job on his
credentials, not his lineage, Segrest said.

"He came very highly recommended. He was a top student in law school, he
has long-standing association and roots in McLennan County, and he seems
to be a very competent young man," Segrest said. "Those other things may
have moved him in the direction of being a prosecutor, but what moved us
in the direction of wanting him to prosecute with us is his perceived
intelligence and ability."

Vicha has sketchy recollections of attending Coble's trial for a few days
when he was 11, saying he sat on the front row while then District
Attorney Paul Gartner and his first assistant at the time, Ralph Strother,
gave stirring closing statements that convinced a jury that Coble should
die for his crimes.

Coble, despondent over the breakup of his 3rd marriage, drove to Axtell
intending to convince his estranged wife, Karen Vicha Coble, to give him
another chance and to ask her to drop kidnapping charges against him for
an incident after their separation.

He encountered Vicha's grandfather, Robert Vicha, while looking for Karen
and shot the 64-year-old in the kitchen. Coble then went to the house of
Bobby Vicha, Karen's brother, about 100 yards down the road and ambushed
him in the garage as the police sergeant parked his car.

Bobby Vicha put up a fight, apparently diving back into his car for his
gun and wounding Coble in the right hand before Coble fatally shot him
several times.

Officials say Zelda Vicha, 60, J.R. Vichas grandmother, was shot to death
after she arrived home later that evening. Coble then went to Karen Vicha
Cobles home nearby, put toy handcuffs on J.R. and his 3 cousins and told
Karen's 3 daughters to tell their mother goodbye. Then he kidnapped Karen
Coble, got into a high-speed chase in Bosque County and wrecked his car,
sending them both to a hospital.

"From what I saw, (Coble) was OK," Vicha said. "Obviously, I was young and
there were things I didn't know, but from what I saw of him, it surprised
me that he would do something like that. But he obviously had a lot of
issues I didnt know about."

Vicha wanted to follow his dad into police work as long as he could
remember. Those plans changed, however, after he decided he didn't want to
work nights and weekends or leave Waco to work for a federal law
enforcement agency.

"I am so very proud of J.R.," said Karen Vicha, who has since remarried
and moved to South Texas. "My brother had such big plans and dreams for
him, and he has proven himself in so many ways. I know that my brother
shares our pride in all that J.R. has accomplished. He is a special
person, just as his dad was."

Strother, who prosecuted Coble and is now a state district judge, has
served as sort of a mentor over the years for Vicha. As a former police
legal adviser, Strother met Bobby Vicha in 1983 and said he was a "good
man and a good officer."

"J.R. is a very, very nice young man with a lot of ability," Strother
said. "He is very intelligent. Wherever he practices law, he is going to
make somebody a good lawyer. I am just thrilled, given his past life
experiences and all he has had to overcome, that he is now in the legal
system."

J.R. Vicha and his wife, Kimberly, are building a house 200 yards from his
father's old house. Still, he says, it's a little early to predict if he
will be a career prosecutor.

"At this point, I have only been working here 4 days," Vicha said earlier
this week. "I feel a little overwhelmed, but well see how it goes."

(source: Waco Tribune-Herald)






NORTH CAROLINA----impending execution

For executions, key ruling ahead----A judge's decision next week on the
presence of doctors could affect the state's lethal injections


Death penalty opponents are hopeful and supporters are fearful that a
federal judge's decision about whether a convicted murderer should be
executed next week could end the death penalty in North Carolina.

U.S. District Judge Malcolm J. Howard will decide whether prison officials
have resolved his concerns that the state's lethal injection method puts
Willie Brown Jr. at risk for a painful execution.

Earlier this month, Howard asked state prison officials to have a
medically trained professional on hand to ensure Brown is sedated enough
before the paralytic and heart-stopping drugs are injected. The state has
suggested that a doctor and nurse monitor a machine to determine Brown's
level of consciousness. But Brown's attorneys said Friday that only an
anesthesiologist will do.

The problem is anesthesiologists may not be willing to participate --
their professional ethics say doctors are healers, not executioners. If
Howard decides that the state has to employ an anesthesiologist and none
are willing, the death penalty may be in jeopardy in North Carolina.

"This might be the breakthrough that really ends executions," said state
Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, a Democrat from Carrboro who first introduced a bill
for a death penalty moratorium 10 years ago.

But the demise of the death penalty is not something state Rep. Rick
Eddins, a Republican from Raleigh, would like to see happen.

"I'm very concerned about his decision," said Eddins, a death penalty
supporter. "I think the current system is fine. It sure is a painless way
to die in comparison to what they put the victims through."

Dick Adams, a victims advocate and death penalty supporter, said he hopes
Howard's intent is to get the U.S. Supreme Court involved. "There might be
a method to his madness," Adams said.

It is unknown when Howard, who was recommended for the bench by former
U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, will make a ruling. It will have to be before 2
a.m. Friday when Brown is set to be executed.

Howard has found himself in a situation similar to what a California judge
experienced 2 months ago. That judge's ruling has stalled the death
penalty in California because the state could not find doctors willing to
be involved. It also revitalized similar legal challenges across the
country.

Howard was the 1st judge to follow suit in asking the state to further
involve medical professionals.

Brown, 61, was sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of Vallerie Roberson
Dixon, a convenience store clerk in Williamston.

Brown is not the 1st death row inmate to challenge North Carolina's method
of lethal injection: a series of 3 drugs that first puts an inmate to
sleep, then paralyzes him and finally stops his heart. A similar drug
cocktail is used by most of the 36 other states that offer lethal
injection as a method of execution.

Since 2004, 6 other death row inmates in North Carolina have filed similar
lawsuits but haven't been as successful. 4 of those inmates have been
executed. Jerry Conner, who is scheduled to be executed May 12, has filed
a federal lawsuit raising the same claims.

The inmates say if they are not fully sedated before the next 2 drugs are
injected, then they are awake to experience an agonizing death. Their
attorneys say that violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual
punishment.

Duke University law professor James E. Coleman Jr. says he thinks these
claims were initially discounted because they were raised by death penalty
opponents and on behalf of death row inmates.

But with reports of innocent people on death row, Coleman said, "I think
judges, especially, and the public now realize these really are important
issues."

Experts say new evidence is persuading these judges. The California judge
was swayed in part by the prison system's execution logs that seemed to
indicate inmates' breathing wasn't stopped as quickly as expected and
before the other drugs were injected.

In North Carolina, Howard considered post-mortem levels of the sedative in
the four most recently executed inmates. The levels appeared to contradict
the state expert's predictions for what would be there if an inmate
received adequate anesthesia. The state says the blood samples may have
been incorrectly collected or stored.

Under the state's proposal, a doctor and nurse would monitor the inmate's
level of consciousness on a BIS, or bispectral index, monitor in an
observation room next to the execution chamber. The machine operates on a
scale from zero to 100 -- the lower number indicates brain death, and the
higher number indicates the patient is awake.

The target value for an unconscious patient is below 60, according the
state's expert, Dr. Mark Dershwitz, an anesthesiologist at the University
of Massachusetts. Once the inmate's level falls below 60, the next two
drugs are injected, Dershwitz said.

In court records, Dershwitz said that the BIS monitor within the context
of the state's protocol "will prevent the possibility of the inmate being
awake."

On Friday, Brown's attorneys, Don Cowan Jr. and Laura Loyek, objected to
the state's proposal, saying it is insufficient considering what Howard
requested.

They say that the state failed to provide any information proving the
doctor and nurse involved are proficient in anesthesiology, trained to use
the monitor or would be close enough to administer medical care if
necessary.

An expert for the inmate, Dr. Mark Heath, an anesthesiologist at Columbia
University, says it is only appropriate for a BIS monitor to be
interpreted by an anesthesiologist or a nurse anesthetist.

(source: News & Observer)






KENTUCKY:

Attorneys: Overturn death sentence


Some 16 months after a judge granted Marco Chapman's wish to be put on
death row for slaughtering 2 young children, attorneys representing him
are asking the Supreme Court to vacate his sentence.

The attorneys from the Department of Public Advocacy in Frankfort said
Chapman has no right to "commit suicide by court" and that the justices
should not allow him effectively to set his own sentence. To do so is
illegal, immoral and a violation of public policy, said the more than
100-page brief filed last month as part of Chapman's appeal.

It's unclear from the appeal whether Chapman is working with his
attorneys. When he pleaded guilty to killing Cody Sharon, 6, and Chelbi
Sharon, 7, raping, robbing and trying to kill their mother, Carolyn
Marksberry, and trying to kill their older sister, Courtney Sharon,
Chapman stated that he wanted to waive all his rights and be executed as
soon as possible.

He reiterated that intention when Boone Circuit Judge Tony Frohlich
sentenced him to death on Dec. 14, 2004, for the crimes he commit against
the family in their Gallatin County home in the early morning hours of
Aug. 23, 2002.

State law, though, requires the Supreme Court to review all death
sentences, and the state public defenders are obligated to file the
appeal. Indeed, the actual appeal was several months later than normal
because Assistant Public Advocate Donna Boyce several times requested more
time - and a waiver that such appeals be limited to less than 50 pages -
from the justices.

No decision is expected any time soon. The state Attorney General's Office
must respond to the appeal, and Chapman's attorneys then will get a chance
to respond to that brief. They also have asked for oral arguments in the
case.

Boyce and other attorneys working on the appeal could not be reached for
comment Friday.

John Delaney, whom Chapman fired as his attorney because he wouldn't go
along with his desire to plead guilty and accept the death penalty, said
the pair have spoken several times since. Chapman has told him several
times that he doesn't regret his decision to ask for the death penalty,
Delaney said.

Delaney, who no longer is involved in the case, said he couldn't reveal
any more of his conversations because of attorney-client privilege.

Under orders from Frohlich, Delaney remained in the case until the
sentencing. The appellate attorneys said that caused a basic conflict-of
interest: Delaney was unable to act in his client's best interest because
his client prohibited him from doing so.

Delaney has said he had enough mitigating evidence - evidence that would
explain Chapman's conduct - to persuade a jury to give Chapman a penalty
other than death. Chapman, however, refused to allow him to present it.

To help solve that problem, the appellate attorneys presented a unique
arrangement - a third attorney who would represent neither the prosecution
nor the defendant, but the death-penalty process itself. That attorney
would present the mitigating evidence, whether Chapman cooperated or not.

"The legitimacy of lethal punishment depends on it," the appeal said.

"Giving a capitally convicted defendant the power to veto a penalty-phase
presentation of available mitigating evidence sabotages that process ...
because it hinders the jury's or the judge's ability to fulfill its
statutory role in sentencing in a meaningful way. Thus, when the trial
court gave Marco Chapman veto power over the presentation of mitigation,
it effectively gave him the power to override this state's independent
sovereign interest in reliable capital punishment."

It's a question that Chapman's attorney says not only must be resolved,
but one on which Frohlich himself said the high court should provide
guidance to trial judges.

"The issue the court should review is whether a defendant can enter into a
plea agreement and negotiate for the death penalty," Frohlich wrote in a
report all judges are required to file after sentencing someone to death.
"The defendant refused to offer mitigating evidence even though his
(attorneys) represented they believed there was substantial mitigating
evidence."

In the appeal, Chapman's attorneys present dozens of arguments as to why
he should not put to death, ranging from the technical to the legal to the
moral. A majority of the brief hinges on whether Chapman was mentally
competent to enter into an agreement that would result in his execution,
or whether he was just seeking help in committing suicide.

The attorneys argue he has a lifetime history of abuse, mental illnesses
and suicidal thoughts and actions to prove the latter.

"Even as a baby, he was depressed," the attorneys said. "Chapman had a
preoccupation with suicide and almost daily thoughts of killing himself."

He first tried to commit suicide at age 14, they said. When he was
arrested for the Warsaw killings, he asked the officer to "shoot him in
the head." He tried to escape while being transferred to court for a
hearing, pleading with a deputy sheriff to "shoot me. Shoot me."

He told a psychiatrist who examined him that he wanted to "commit suicide
by court."

The attorneys said, while Chapman might have been competent to stand
trial, Frohlich never properly determined whether Chapman was competent to
seek his own death penalty. Indeed, they said, some evidence suggests that
any desire to seek one's own death at the hands of the state signifies
incompetency.

"Even if the court does not take this view of inherent incompetence, the
questionable rationality of choosing to die must require heightened
scrutiny," they said. "... In the capital context, an attempt to achieve a
suicidal waiver is not acceptable simply because the defendant understands
the proceedings and may abstractly be able to assist" his attorneys, the
normal standard for being judged competent to stand trial.

(source: Kentucky Post)






MARYLAND:

Steele Wants Death Penalty Reexamined----Democrats Criticize Timing of
Statements


Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele broke his long silence yesterday on
the way the state is handling death penalty cases, saying he believes
there is reason for concern about racial, economic and geographic
disparities in the way people are sentenced.

"Our system does have flaws," he said in his first lengthy interview on
the subject since he took office. "The racial component is a genuine,
legitimate concern. That's something that needs to be addressed."


Steele, a Republican and Roman Catholic who is running for U.S. Senate
this year, has long voiced strong religious objections to capital
punishment but has tempered his views since becoming lieutenant governor
in deference to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), a death penalty proponent.

Steele has largely maintained that silence during the 3 years he and
Ehrlich have served, even as the governor signed death warrants for 2
inmates. With each execution, Steele withstood criticism from people
opposed to the death penalty who believed he was doing too little to
intervene.

Even as he broached the topic anew yesterday, at a time when he has been
striking out on his own campaign and exercising more freedom to voice his
views, Steele remained measured and deferential to Ehrlich.

His said his recommendation to Ehrlich, laid out in a confidential
memorandum that he did not share, was that the governor form a work group
to review the fairness and accuracy of Maryland's death penalty system.

He recommended that the group be composed of a cross section of interest
groups on both sides of the capital punishment debate and listed 8
"pressing" issues it should study -- including false confessions, the use
of jailhouse informants, ineffective assistance of counsel, and racial,
economic and geographic disparities.

During a 45-minute interview in his State House office, Steele labored
over a question about whether Ehrlich should reinstate a moratorium on
executions in Maryland during the proposed review by the work group. He
leaned back in his chair and took several stabs at a response before
shaking his head and muttering, "This is tough as hell."

"I would put it this way," Steele finally said. "I've shared with the
governor my personal views on all aspects of the death penalty and have, I
think, given him the reasons why I hold those views, and that would
include the question of moratorium."

"I think you get my inference there," he added.

A spokeswoman for Ehrlich said yesterday the governor will review Steele's
recommendations before making any comment.

Democrats immediately questioned the timing of Steele's statements and
faulted him for offering what they considered a halfhearted approach.

"3 1/2 years to suggest nothing but further study?" said Derek Walker, the
spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party. "For an issue he claims to
care so deeply about, there's been a startling lack of principled action."

The lieutenant governor said politics did not factor into his decision to
make the recommendation now. The announcement did come as he has been
attempting to court African American voters, a constituency that
traditionally has been loyal to Democrats.

Steele, the 1st African American elected to statewide office in Maryland,
yesterday repeated concerns he has raised in the past about racial
disparities in how the death penalty is being imposed. 5 of the 6 men on
the state's death row are black, and the victims of all but one were
white.

"It may not be the intent, but there is a perception in the way the
sentences are handed down that a white life is worth more than a black
life," Steele said. "We need to assure the people of this state that life
is valued regardless of skin color or economic status."

Ehrlich's predecessor, Parris N. Glendening (D), issued a moratorium on
the death penalty pending the outcome of a study by University of Maryland
criminologist Raymond Paternoster.

Paternoster released his report in January 2003, saying he had found
evidence of geographic and racial disparities in the state's use of the
death penalty. Capital cases were brought almost twice as often when there
was a white victim, the report found, and blacks who killed whites were 2
1/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death than whites who killed
whites.

Ehrlich did not reinstate the moratorium.

Cathy Knepper, a death penalty opponent, said she had become deeply
frustrated with Steele for not persuading Ehrlich to reconsider. But
yesterday she said she was encouraged by Steele's statements.

"He has said over time he would be doing something," Knepper said. "It has
taken a really long time for that to happen, but I am delighted to have it
happen at any point."

(source: Washington Post)



VIRGINIA----impending execution

Death-row inmate asks for clemency----Kaine receives his 1st petition as
governor, as execution day nears


Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has received his 1st clemency petition from a
death-row inmate, Dexter Lee Vinson, set to be executed April 27.

Vinson was convicted of the May 19, 1997, capital murder of Angela Felton
in Portsmouth. Felton, 25, the mother of three, bled to death. She was
abducted, sexually assaulted, stabbed and suffered head injuries.

Kaine, a former civil-rights lawyer who opposes the death penalty,
promised during his campaign that he would follow Virginia law.

"The governor is going to exercise clemency the same way every other
governor exercised it -- it's a rare intervention typically granted only
in those cases where there are grave doubts about the guilt of the
individual," Kaine spokesman Kevin Hall said yesterday.

Virginia governors have a free hand in exercising clemency. Vinson is
asking that Kaine commute his death sentence to life without parole.

The last death sentence commuted in Virginia occurred Nov. 29, when former
Gov. Mark R. Warner -- who let 11 other executions proceed -- spared the
life of Robin McKennel Lovitt because a court clerk had destroyed evidence
in the case.

There has not been an execution in Virginia since Sept. 9, 2004, when
James Edward Reid was put to death.

Lawyers for Vinson, 42, filed the clemency petition with Kaine on
Thursday.

Vinson's lawyers have also gone to U.S. District Court alleging lethal
injection would violate his rights. Death-row inmates across the country
are in court arguing the way lethal injection is conducted is potentially
torturous.

A hearing is set to be held on Vinson's argument in federal court Monday.
At least one other Virginia death-row inmate is challenging the way
Virginia conducts lethal injections. Most states use the same, 3-drug
procedure.

This month a federal judge in North Carolina ordered that authorities have
medically trained personnel make sure a condemned killer is unconscious
during his execution by injection set for Friday.

Vinson's clemency petition states there is new evidence that, among other
things, casts doubt on the credibility and accuracy of witnesses in the
case. Also, according to the petition, much evidence collected at the
crime scene was never tested by the state forensics laboratory.

"The sub-text to Vinson's trial was a singular, extraordinary
circumstance: one of Vinson's defense [lawyers] was suing the other and
accusing him of racism," the clemency petition says.

The petition contends that, "this is of heightened concern in Vinson's
case because the case was awash in racial overtones. Vinson, a black male,
was accused of killing a white female."

Vinson's lead lawyer was a white male, and his 2nd lawyer, the woman suing
for racial discrimination, a black female.

According to a 1999 Virginia Supreme Court ruling on Vinson's case,
witnesses saw Vinson in the vicinity of the vacant house where Felton's
nude body was discovered wrapped in a blanket inside a "busted" wall.

An autopsy showed she bled to death from cuts on her forearms. There were
additional knife wounds on her shoulders, neck and cheek and she had
received "blunt force trauma" to her head.

A witness said she saw Vinson slam a car door on a woman's head twice just
outside the vacant house. A palm print, DNA and other evidence linked
Vinson to the crime.

During Vinson's trial, a mental-health expert testified that Vinson
suffered from "intermittent explosive disorder" and was unable to control
himself at the time of the crimes. An expert called by the state said that
almost all violent criminals suffer from that disorder.

There have been 94 executions in Virginia since 1976, when the U.S.
Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume. The toll is 2nd among
the states to Texas, which has executed 362 killers.

(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)