[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, VA., USA, TENN., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 17


OHIO:

Parole board, state Supreme Court keep Clark execution on track for May 2


Gov. Bob Taft should not intervene in the planned May 2 execution of
Joseph Lewis Clark in the 1984 robbery slaying of a 23-year-old Toledo
man, the Ohio Parole Board unanimously recommended this morning.

Also this morning, the state Supreme Court rejected a motion from Clark
seeking to stop the May 2 execution clock on the grounds that a case still
pending in federal court challenges Ohio's lethal injection protocol as
potentially cruel and unusual punishment.

The parole board did not accept the arguments of Clark's attorneys that
his drug addiction, troubled childhood, and low-normal intelligence
culminated in a 9-day crime spree that ended in the deaths of 2 men and
the wounding of a 3rd.

"(T)he brutality inflicted by Clark cannot be justifiably explained away
by speculation that his actions were caused by factors adversely working
together in a short duration of a crime spree," reads the board's clemency
report. "His well established prior criminal conduct, both as a juvenile
and as an adult, signifies a propensity for violent behavior."

Clark is set to become the 21st person, and the 1st from Lucas County, to
die on Ohio's lethal injection gurney since the state resumed carrying out
the death penalty in 1999.

Clark confessed to shooting David A. Manning, during a robbery of a Clark
gas station at 3070 Airport Highway on the night of Jan. 13, 1984. A day
earlier, Clark had killed another store clerk, Donald Harris, 21, at a
Lawson Milk Store at 4401 Hill Ave, a crime for which he received a life
sentence.

The crime spree came to an end after Clark shot a third man, Robert
Roloff, during a robbery at a bank ATM, and a fast-thinking witness noted
his license plate number. Mr. Roloff survived 2 gunshot wounds.

(source: Toledo Blade)






VIRGINIA:

Judge refused to block Vinson execution


In Richmond, a federal judge today refused to stay the execution of Dexter
Lee Vinson.

The 42-year-old Vinson is scheduled to die by injection on April 27th for
sexually assaulting and killing his former girlfriend, Angela Felton, in
Portsmouth.

Vinson's lawyers challenged the method used to administer the lethal
injection. They argued that Vinson has a right to know the details of the
protocol used by his executioners. That information is kept secret, and
the protocol can be changed at the last minute.

Judge Henry Hudson found NO merit in the claims. He noted that nothing has
changed since death row inmate James Reid unsuccessfully tried a similar
challenge in federal court. Reid was executed in 2004.

Rob Lee is Vinson's attorney. He says he will consider appealing Hudson's
ruling. He also has asked Governor Tim Kaine to commute Vinson's sentence
to life without parole.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

They should suffer


Re: "Lethal injection roadblocks grow - Judges base decisions on new
evidence of excruciating executions," Wednesday news story.

"Agonizing," "cruel and unusual punishment," "tortuous" - no, these aren't
words to describe those who have died at the hands of criminals. They're
used to define the unfair punishment of the death row inmates who
committed these crimes.

Did the victims in these crimes suffer an agonizing death? Did the victims
in these crimes yell and scream and plead for their lives and suffer
excruciating pain? You bet they did.

Death row inmates are there for a reason. They deserve to die. If they
suffer a little, so be it. If they suffer a lot, it will make my day!

Wendy L. Savage, Grapevine

(source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)






TENNESSEE:

Murder retrial set for man on death row


A man who spent 15 years on Tennessees death row before his murder
conviction was reversed will be back in court this week.

Michael Lee McCormick, 54, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987
for the 1985 Valentines Day killing of Chattanooga pharmacist Donna Jean
Nichols.

The 23-year-old pharmacist was shot in the head and her body dumped in a
mall parking lot.

McCormick was granted a new trial in 1997 based on ineffective assistance
of counsel. DNA test results in 2001 showed that a hair used to place him
at the scene of the killing could not be his. He was released from jail on
a $100,000 bond in 2003.

Jury selection in the new trial was expected to begin Monday in Hamilton
County Criminal Court.

In the 1st trial, prosecutors said McCormick killed Nichols to keep her
from telling authorities about a burglary he had committed with Nichols
brother.

Much of the evidence used to convict McCormick in 1987 has been ruled
inadmissible in his new trial.

Defense lawyer Michael Richardson said the biggest challenge for the
defense team will be addressing a conversation secretly recorded by an
undercover agent in which McCormick claims to have killed Nichols.

The undercover agent had offered McCormick a way to make some money by
killing someone, but first he wanted to know if McCormick had ever killed
before.

Richardson called it a "false confession."

"Our position is a lot of people brag about things they didnt do to
impress people," he said.

(source: Associated Press)






OKLAHOMA:

Cannibal In Oklahoma -- Interview With A Profiler

Oklahoma residents were shocked when they learned a
serial-killer-in-training was preparing for a reign of terror that would
victimize them or their fellow citizens. Although law enforcement was able
to apprehend the maniac before he achieved the designation of "serial
killer," one young child suffered the horrors of meeting this bloodthirsty
monster.

The remains of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin were discovered by police
officers in a plastic tub in her neighbor's closet, and investigators
believe her murder was part of the killer's elaborate plan of cannibalism.

The brutalized child's body showed deep saw marks on her neck and was
apparently hit several times with a wooden cutting board, Purcell police
Chief David Tompkins said during a press conference. Police detectives
removed meat tenderizer and barbecue skewers from his apartment, one floor
down from where the girl lived with her father.

"Regarding a potential motive, this appears to have been part of a plan to
kidnap a person, rape them, torture them, kill them, cut off their head,
drain the body of blood, rape the corpse, eat the corpse, then dispose of
the organs and bones," Chief Tompkins told reporters.

The vicious murderer, Kevin Ray Underwood, 26, was arrested Friday after
police officers found the child's body within the closet of a bedroom in
his apartment. The girl's unclothed body was inside a large plastic tub,
along with a towel used to soak up blood, officials said.

Police would not say whether Underwood confessed to the slaying. The
district attorney planned to file 1st-degree murder charges Monday and
said he would seek the death penalty.

"This does not appear to be a spur-of-the-moment crime of opportunity, but
a well-thought-out, premeditated act with months of planning and
preparation," McClain County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall said. The
detectives also reportedly recovered evidence from the killer's apartment
that Jamie Rose was only the beginning.

When writing my first book, "Crime Talk: Conversations with America's Top
Crimefighters," I interviewed the first-ever FBI profiler in order to
bring about at least a rudimentary understanding of these monsters who
prey on the innocent and leave a trail of death in their wake. That
profiler was former FBI agent Robert Ressler. Below is the chapter in
which I interviewed Ressler about these remorseless monsters:

*****

Retired FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler makes a living tracking down some
of America's most vicious, brutal and frightening predators. In fact,
Ressler is the man who coined the term "serial killer" while working in
the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit.

Bob Ressler is credited with creating the FBI's Criminal Profiling System,
and is considered the foremost expert on the psychology of serial and mass
murders. During his ongoing research, he interviewed over 100 of the most
terrifying killers known to mankind. He developed "intimate" relationships
with the likes of David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson,
and he's the only person to ever interview John Wayne Gacy on video.

Prior to joining the FBI, Ressler served for 10 years with the US Army's
Criminal Investigations Division (CID), rising to the rank of colonel. He
holds both the bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in criminology
and lectures across the country, teaching homicide investigation to local
police-agency detectives.

Ressler is the acknowledged true-life hero of the book and movie, Silence
of the Lambs, and he served as an advisor to the story's author, Thomas
Harris.

*****

Kouri: Throughout your 20-year FBI career, you have seen a continual
increase in the number of serial killers. You refer to this as a
phenomenon of contemporary America. Can you explain why there has been
such an upsurge in serial killings?

Ressler: Well, nobody knows for sure. Nobody really has all the answers.
Anyone claiming to know the answer is not being realistic. The indicators
are that over the past few decades there's been certainly a correlation of
more violence -- not just serial murders, but all violent crime -- such as
child offenses, rapes ... you name it. And the indicators are that we are
looking at an era of violence that is consistent with the breakdown of the
American family. We're seeing a lot more single-parent families, a lot
more dysfunctional families and broken families. Along with that we're
seeing a kind of across the board desire to resist authority as a result
of the sequence of the 1960s and '70s when more and more people were
challenging government, and challenging our society, and more or less
doing their own thing and not towing-the-line as young people did in the
'30s, '40s and '50s. You have all these people in the '60s and '70s and on
into the 1990s looking out for themselves.

People have become basically self-centered. Self-goals take the place of
society's goals. People aren't committing themselves to anything except
themselves. And this all has a wide range of behavioral results. But when
you're talking about an individual who is sexually dysfunctional or
morally dysfunctional and he thinks in terms of getting these same goals
on an individual level, and he thinks in terms having sexual relationships
that he feels are unattainable, he starts forcibly taking them. And, of
course, your violent serial killer is a totally dysfunctional person who's
just helping himself to whatever he wants without regard to the
consequences. Kouri: So you feel that these men are dysfunctional sexual
beings. How does this translate into sexual murder?

Ressler: It translates into sexual murder because they are dysfunctional
and they cannot function sexually within the constraints of a normal
relationship. They have no relationships. They end up being people who are
incapable of any type of relationship, and they end up stalking, seeking
out, and discarding members of our society -- their victims.

Kouri: That kind of leads into my next question. How do you explain the
fact that there has been only a couple female serial killers? Most of
these murderers are white males in their 20s or 30s.

Ressler: I don't think anyone knows the complete answer. Anyone who
professes to know is just fooling people.

Women? I'm asked that question constantly. Why don't women commit these
types of homicides, as males do? And the answer is simple as the
differences between male and female. Males are males and females are
females.

Women have a totally different constitution than men -- chemically,
biologically, and emotionally. You know, the whole thing in feminism right
now is trying to make us believe that men and women are not different.
That they're the same. That their capabilities and intelligence and
everything else are the same. That we're all just one big entity. It's
just not true. Males and females are distinctly different and there is a
capability of males for [physical] aggression that women have never, never
in history shared with males. Men have historically been hunters --
stalkers.

Women do not have a propensity for violent crime as men do and anyone who
says they do has not really studied the problem.

Kouri: Do you have any estimates as to how many serial killers are out
there today? I've heard several estimates and some seemed a bit
outrageous.

Ressler: Well, the estimates out there today are really a matter of
shooting in the dark. The FBI maintains the best recordkeeping system in
the country and that, of course, is the yearly Uniform Crime Report, and
the FBI maintains no system of tracking the number of serial killers in
society. The UCR does not encompass that figure.

Now, I've heard hundreds. Behavioral scientists are giving a rough guess
of about 50 based on the number of cases that they would deal with.

Kouri: You state in your book that serial killers were exposed to an
enormous amount of abuse -- either physically, mentally, or both --
between the ages of 8 and 12. Yet there are many people who have been
abused as children who did not grow up to be psychopathic killers. What is
the reason for a select few becoming serial killers?

Ressler: Well, I've researched it and researched it and, again, I just
don't know for sure.

The dynamics that we have isolated are that the common threads that we
recognize in serial killers are also consistent within people who are not
serial killers. So again, it's a dysfunctional home life, growing up in a
relationship in which they feel insecure and frightened, and not really
sure what tomorrow may bring. These individuals grow up hating the world
around them, and hating themselves and their families.

But what actually gets into the picture that makes some of these types
homicidal? We just don't know what that element is.

Kouri: Who, in your professional opinion, was the most terrifying serial
killer in US history?

Ressler: Oh, I think Ted Bundy was probably the most brutal. [Many claim
it's] Jeffrey Dahmer, but he killed his victims first and got that out of
the way and then sexually assaulted the corpses or cannibalized them. But
the victims were dead and didn't feel the pain of that. Bundy, on the
other hand, liked to keep his victims alive and torture and torment them
for a period of time before actually killing them. So I think Bundy was
probably the most diabolical and most vicious.

Kouri: Ted Bundy claimed that pornography had much to do with his behavior
-- his criminal behavior. Do you put much stock in that or do you think he
was just saying what people wanted to hear?

Ressler: He was saying what others wanted to hear. Bundy was a classic and
tortuous liar, and the interviewer who interviewed him [before he was
executed] was a religious-oriented psychologist...

Kouri: ...James Dobson.

Ressler: Right. James Dobson. And Bundy figured this was something the guy
wanted to hear and figured he'd provide him with something interesting.
Bundy was such a pathetic liar and a devious person, there was just
nowhere in his life for the truth.

Kouri: Throughout your book and in your many interviews, you show an
unusual amount of respect and understanding of these murderers. Why do you
feel they're worthy of your respect or admiration?

Ressler: Admiration is not quite the proper term. It's not a matter of
admiration, it's a matter of availing these people to feel a certain
amount of respect during the interview process, and that is necessary to
establish a rapport that is going to last throughout the interview and
gain the maximum amount of information. If there is any degree of
admiration on my part it would for the fact that the killer is being
candid and openly providing information as honestly as they can. But from
the standpoint of their crimes and their behavior, I find them totally
reprehensible. Again, for the period of the interview, any personal
feelings I have against these individuals and their crimes I leave outside
of the interview room; because to carry that kind of psychological baggage
into the room with me would harm the rapport I have with these killers.

Kouri: You leave judgments outside because you're looking for their
cooperation in conducting your research?

Ressler: Exactly. You can't be judgmental when you're doing research. If
you go in there thinking, "Well, you've killed children, and I have
children, and I hate you, and I think you should roast in hell," that's
not going to work. In the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, we had several
individuals that would go into these interviews with that mind set and
attitude, and some of the interviews turn into arguments. You know, the
interviewer chastising and berating the subject, and that's just not a
professional attitude.

Kouri: Right. Like in the John Reid method of interrogation, you downplay
the seriousness of the criminal act in order to get the desired
information or confession.

Ressler: Exactly. Any FBI or police interrogator or interviewer certainly
must be trained properly and understand you don't go into the
interrogation or interview process with some preconceived bias against the
person you're dealing with. You remain neutral. You must leave personal
feelings outside the interview room. Of course, the important thing is
that you pick up these feelings when you leave the interview -- not to do
that would cause you to sympathize and even become a bleeding-heart and an
advocate of these people, and feeling sorry for them and their ugly lives.

Kouri: When you worked as an advisor to the Milwaukee serial killer's
attorney, you were amazed to find that Jeffrey Dahmer was gentle, candid,
cooperative, and polite. At the same time, you realized that you had
encountered a frightening new generation of serial killer. How is Dahmer
different from the murderers who grew up in a decade past?

Ressler: When I wrote that in my book, maybe people wondered what I meant
-- that Dahmer was such an easy going likable person. It comes out loud
and clear when you meet him: This guy is non-threatening, he's
intelligent, he appears well, he's soft-spoken, he's quiet. So everything
I've said about him comes out loud and clear. And this all backs up the
fact that I had a really good interview with the guy. My assessment of him
is right on the money. He's a unique killer.

Kouri: Do you think most killers are intelligent -- underachievers maybe
-- but basically intelligent?

Ressler: Yeah, certainly. I think intelligence factors are always high
with these individuals. It's part of their makeup. They're smart enough to
know better, but they still commit some pretty awful crimes.

Kouri: You've stressed that there are two homicidal types: the mass
murderers, who wipe out a lot of people at once; and the serial killers,
who murder a string of strangers for no apparent reason, with a "cooling
off" period between each crime. Other than that fact, how do they differ?

Ressler: They are as different as the day is long. One thing that the
classification by the FBI of violent offenders shows is the difference;
one thing people fail to understand is there is no single type of serial
or mass murderer. There are many, many categories and subcategories. The
FBI's classification system lists five categories of homicide, but working
with my colleagues at the FBI Academy, we came up with some 43 different
classifications of homicide, which are listed in the book, The Crime
Classification Manual.

The 43 categories of homicide shows there are clearly, distinctly
different categories and subcategories of serial and mass murderers and
other types, as well. It is overly simplistic to classify all homicides in
five categories.

Kouri: Can you just briefly describe -- and I know that's difficult -- how
your criminal profiling system works?

Ressler: You're right, it is a lengthy process. "Whoever Fights Monsters"
has several chapters devoted to criminal profiling. The FBI's Criminal
Classification Manual is devoted to that subject as well.

In a nutshell, criminal profiling is simply having enough information
through research and experience about crime patterns and crime trends to
look at a crime scene and analyze that crime scene from a behavioral
standpoint. From there you do a form of crime analysis that is not usually
undertaken by a conventional police officer without a behavioral approach.

Kouri: Do you feel small police departments are capable of investigating
serial killings? If not, how can they gain that capability?

Ressler: I don't think small departments are capable of such
investigations, because one of the main dynamics of understanding a serial
or multiple crime is experience in the same type of situation. The rules
of investigation change drastically when you get a person committing
multiple offenses, and the small police department with one homicide is
approaching it as a single case, when in fact it may be part of a series.

Even in major-city police departments, a detective in an entire career --
even in New York, LA, or Chicago -- may never or maybe only once will be
involved in a case where there's serial-type activity going down. So it
becomes a matter of deferring to someone who can at least assess your case
based on direct knowledge of other similar cases, and who can direct you
to the most resources possible to help you. That's really what the FBI
developed in their National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. It's
a resource center. The FBI may not have all the answers for police
detectives, but they know where to go for those answers.

Kouri: In your experience, did you find local law enforcement hesitant to
call the FBI and say, "Hey listen, we need your help on a case?" Did you
find that a lot, or did you receive many calls for assistance?

Ressler: It's usually the individual investigator who takes a chance and
makes a call to the FBI, but department-wise, yeah sure. I was in law
enforcement before I was in the FBI. I served in the Army's Criminal
Investigation Division (CID) for 10 years and I know for a fact that the
FBI has a long history of scooping up the cases of local police and then
running to the press and that sort of thing. It's something that they've
done in the past and they'll never shake it down unless they show a better
"face." Some agents are fair with their local counterparts, while others
scoop up the credit. That's sometimes hard to stomach for a local cop: He
puts a lot of work into a case only to have the FBI takeover and then go
to the media. That kind of thing caused much resentment, some places it's
very strong, some places it's not. The fact is the FBI has no real
jurisdiction in local homicides and cannot investigate these things on
their own. The way they enter a case is through a request by a local
police agency or member of the department.

You know something, I've even had the FBI scoop me on a couple of
cases...and then I joined the FBI.

Robert Ressler is the author of the best-selling book, Whoever Fights
Monsters, and was honored with membership in the Mystery Writers of
America even before sitting down to write a book. When faced with a
seemingly insurmountable problem, experts on crime seek out Ressler.

(source: The Post Chronicle (Jim Kouri, CPP is currently 5th
vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a
staff writer for the New Media Alliance)