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

[Rick Halperin]

April 20


FLORIDA:

Killer avoids death penalty, gets life term----Michael Locascio was
sentenced to 3 consecutive life terms in prison, plus 30 years, for
killing his sister-in-law.


The judge called it a "text-book" case for the death penalty.

But the jurors recommended Michael Locascio's life be spared and Circuit
Judge Stanford Blake was bound by their ruling.

"Someday we all meet our maker," Blake told Locascio on Wednesday night,
after sentencing him to 3 consecutive life terms plus 30 years in prison
for the murder of his sister-in-law. "Life in prison may be easier for
you." Locascio, 46, was convicted last month of beating and stabbing his
sister-in-law, Maggie Locascio, to death in 2001 in her posh Coral Gables
home.

The victim's son, Eddie Locascio, read a statement from the family urging
Blake to override the jury's verdict and impose the death penalty.

"We cannot bear to believe that he sits smugly in prison, believing that
he has won in some way, while Maggie, a mother, daughter, sister and aunt,
lies rotting in a box," Eddie Locascio told the judge.

Blake told Eddie Locascio, 23, that he sympathized with the family but
explained that the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed cases in which judges
have overridden the jury's verdict recommending life.

"One thing I'm sure of is your mom is looking down and is very, very proud
of you," Blake said. "I feel the pain of your family. I really do."

He offered the only consolation left -- "The only way he will leave prison
is in a pine box."

FINAL ARGUMENTS

During the final arguments, after three long days of testimony in the
penalty phase of the trial, prosecutor Gail Levine vividly reenacted the
murder for the jury, using a broken mannequin to show how Locascio beat
his sister-in-law with a baton, stabbed her with a knife, stomped on her
chest and bashed her head against a wall.

The mannequin's hands were grotesquely twisted to show the broken bones
Maggie Locascio suffered trying to defend herself.

Eddie Locascio quietly sobbed in the audience, his face buried in his
hands, during Levine's closing arguments.

"How much pain did Maggie endure?" Levine asked.

She urged the jury to vote for death, calling the murder cruel and
calculated. She also argued that Locascio deserved the death penalty
because Locascio committed it for money.

The state's theory was that Maggie's husband, Ed Locascio, was going to
pay his unemployed brother to get rid of his wife so he wouldn't have to
split his money with her when they divorced.

Ed Locascio is also facing murder charges in connection with his wife's
death.

Michael Locascio's attorneys offered a different theory -- that Michael
Locascio suffered from a personality disorder that was aggravated by a
brain injury. They presented witnesses who said he was depressed and
irrational, sometimes even paranoid.

'HE HAS VALUE'

"[Michael Locascio] was under extreme stress and he had a mental disorder.
He went crazy and did a horrible thing which he will pay for for the rest
of his life," attorney Charles White told the jurors.

"But he has value. . . . That's a reason to save a man's life."

And finally, the defense appealed to the jurors' sympathy, pointing out
that Locascio has a 15-year-old son who still loves him, no matter what he
did.

"His son needs him," White said.

Eddie Locascio said he was disappointed with the outcome, but he was
already steeling himself for his father's trial.

"There is one more murderer to go in this case," he said. "Justice will be
done for my mother."

(source: Miami Herald)






CALIFORNIA:

Nut Cases jury rejects death for convicted killer ---- Panel recommends
life prison term for 4 gang murders


An Oakland gang member convicted of four murders and a host of other
crimes will spend the rest of his life in prison, a jury decided Tuesday.

Demarcus Ralls, 21, a member of the Nut Cases gang, was convicted March 22
of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of 2nd-degree murder.
Jurors also found him guilty of two counts of attempted murder and more
than a dozen counts of robbery and attempted robbery.

The same jury opted Tuesday to sentence Ralls to life in prison without
the possibility of parole. Prosecutors had sought death.

Ralls did not react as the verdict was read in an Oakland courtroom, but
his attorney Deborah Levy put her arm around him.

Ralls remained emotionless until Levy nudged him and looked into his eyes
with a smile.

He smiled back.

"I'm so ecstatic," she said afterward, adding that she and Ralls' family
feared the jury would sentence him to death. "Despite the despicable
nature of these crimes, this young guy deserves a break. Clearly there was
enough for the jury to have voted death."

Levy said of Ralls, "He's not happy about the fact that he is facing life
in prison, but it is better than the alternative."

Prosecutor Darryl Stallworth said he was comfortable with the jury's
decision. He said he spoke with jurors Tuesday, and they said their
decision not to sentence Ralls to death was made in part because Ralls was
a minor heavily influenced by his older brother when the 2 of them killed
Joseph Mabrey in October 2002.

Stallworth said jurors told him they could not conclude that Ralls fired
the gun that killed Douglas Ware Jr., Keith Maki-Harris or Jerry Duckworth
in December 2002.

"I saw things somewhat differently," Stallworth said. "But I am happy
there is some closure. I'm trusting the families are happy we have some
closure at this phase. There were a tragic, tragic number of events that
still resonate with a lot of pain. It is a reminder of how fragile life is
and how important it is to bring these cases to justice."

Ralls will be formally sentenced by Alameda County Superior Court Judge
Jeffrey Horner on July 7.

Police believe Ralls was among the most violent members of a gang that,
according to members' own statements to police, killed and robbed simply
for the thrill. Prosecutors portrayed him as a remorseless criminal.

During the sentencing phase, Levy argued that Ralls "never had a chance in
life" because his mother abused drugs and his family neglected him. She
argued that his rough childhood was a mitigating factor in his crimes.

Jurors found Ralls guilty of 1st-degree murder in the killings of
Duckworth and Maki-Harris and of Sunny Thach on Jan. 6, 2003. They
convicted him of 2nd-degree murder in the Ware killing.

The Thach killing included the special-circumstances allegation that the
crime was committed during a robbery, which provided prosecutors the basis
to seek the death penalty. That portion of the trial concluded last week.

Ralls is the 1st of 6 members of the Nut Cases to be tried for 5 murders
and more than 20 robberies during a 10-week crime spree that ended with
their arrest in January 2003. The other defendants are expected to be
tried later this year. The remaining defendants include two of Ralls' half
brothers and a cousin.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)

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

State Prisons Chief Resigns After 2 Months on the Job----Jeanne S.
Woodford, as did her predecessor, reportedly complained of political
interference.


Less than two months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's corrections chief
resigned because he felt politics were interfering with progress, his
replacement abruptly followed suit Wednesday, leaving the governor
scrambling to find a leader to run the state's deeply troubled prisons.

Jeanne S. Woodford, who began her corrections career 28 years ago as a
guard at San Quentin State Prison, met with the governor at the Capitol
and told him later that she was resigning, according to government
officials familiar with the situation.

Woodford, who did not return a phone call to her home Wednesday night,
will serve temporarily as undersecretary before officially leaving the
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in July.

Her departure follows the resignation in February of Roderick Q. Hickman,
who said he was moving on because he lacked sufficient political support
to bring change to a prison system that is often called a revolving-door
warehouse for felons.

California's "political environment and the power of special interests,"
Hickman said at the time, "work against efforts to bring about lasting
reform."

In recent days, Woodford, 52, expressed some of the same concerns, said
one official familiar with the situation, who asked not be named because
he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Woodford was particularly distressed that top aides to Schwarzenegger were
consulting the prison guards union about her suggested candidates for
warden jobs and other positions in the department, the official said.

One meeting between union officials and the aides took place as recently
as Tuesday.

"She just did not like the signals she was getting from the
administration," the official said of Woodford, who had been serving as
acting secretary since Hickman's departure and was a leading candidate to
win the job permanently. "She believed labor should go through proper
channels [in expressing their input], and that wasn't happening anymore."

The back-to-back resignations create a management crisis for the governor
at an agency with a multitude of troubles. In addition to Woodford,
several other high- and medium-level executives have left since Hickman
stepped down.

Morale within the sprawling agency - which oversees 173,000 adult and
juvenile felons and 115,000 parolees - is said to be dismally low.

The twin departures also undermine one of Schwarzenegger's most ambitious
and widely praised initiatives since taking office: his oft-stated pledge
to make California's dysfunctional prison system a national model once
again. "Corrections," he has said time and again, "should correct."

With an annual budget of $8.6 billion, the department has many of its
operations - from mental health care to its juvenile prisons - under
federal court supervision. And this week its disgraced medical care system
- which experts have blamed for an average of one inmate death a week -
was placed in the hands of a federal receiver.

The convict population, meanwhile, has hit an all-time high, with many
prisons at twice their intended capacity. Vacancies in officer positions
are so numerous that guards are routinely working mandatory overtime, a
situation their union leaders call untenable.

On Wednesday, a lobbyist with that union, the California Correctional
Peace Officers' Assn., said Woodford had "failed to achieve what we felt
was her potential to bring true change to the department."

Lance Corcoran said that if Woodford's departure suggests "the union is
the bad guy again, then that's ridiculous." He said he was unaware of any
meeting between the governor's staff and leaders of his union, but added:
"So what if there was? Since when don't we have the right to communicate?"

A spokeswoman for the governor declined to comment. But in 2004, when
Schwarzenegger appointed her director of corrections - the No. 2 job at
the time - he praised Woodford for a "proven ability to lead," saying that
"she shares my priorities of public safety and accountability and is a
tremendous asset."

Woodford, in turn, said after she was named acting secretary that she
believed Schwarzenegger remained committed to reform. "The departure of
one person," she said then, "will not derail the progress we have made."

Experts have said that Schwarzenegger faces a major challenge in searching
for a new corrections secretary with national credentials. UC Irvine
criminologist Joan Petersilia said no leader in another state "is going to
come to a place where the environment just makes it impossible to do the
business of corrections."

With Woodford withdrawing from the scene, that task becomes more difficult
than ever, officials said, especially during a year when Schwarzenegger is
running for reelection.

Times staff writer Peter Nicholas contributed to this report.

(source: Los Angeles Times)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Doctor oath a concern in death----Execution monitor required by judge


Early Friday, if a doctor and nurse do what prison officials ask, experts
say they will violate their professional ethics by participating in the
execution of death row inmate Willie Brown Jr.

Prison officials plan to have a doctor and nurse monitor a bispectral
index, or BIS, monitor, to make sure Brown is unconscious before he is
injected with lethal drugs.

Brown, 61, who will be executed at 2 a.m. Friday, is thought to be the
first inmate in the country whose execution will involve such a medical
device, which measures brain waves.

State officials proposed using the machine this month to alleviate a
federal judge's concerns that Brown might experience a painful death. The
judge then required the machine and the medical professionals' involvement
for the execution to proceed.

The code of medical ethics of both the American Medical Association and
the N.C. Medical Society prohibits physicians being involved in
executions, including watching a heart monitor or consulting with those
people injecting the lethal drugs. And doctors take an oath to first, do
no harm.

"You are using medical skills in the participation of an execution," said
Dr. Priscilla Ray, who is chairwoman of the AMA's council on ethical and
judicial affairs.

Dr. Jonathan Groner, a surgeon at Ohio State University who opposes the
death penalty and writes about doctors' involvement in executions, said,
"It's the corruption of medicine, the Hippocratic oath and 'first, do no
harm.'"

North Carolina law requires a prison doctor be present at all executions
and keeps doctors' identities confidential.

Code for doctors

At the request of several local doctors, the N.C. Medical Board will
discuss at its May meeting what punishment a doctor could face for
participating in an execution.

Arthur L. Finn, a retired doctor and professor in Chapel Hill who opposes
the death penalty, was one of those who wrote to the board.

"If there's a state law that says a physician has to be present, and if
the medical board says it's unethical to be present, then they're going to
have to stop executions at least until the rules are changed," Finn said.

The American Nurses Association also opposes nurses being involved in
executions, but the state board has no such policy, a rarity among the
nation's licensing boards for nurses.

Brown is set to die by lethal injection for the 1983 killing of Vallerie
Ann Roberson Dixon, a Williamston convenience store clerk. The same
morning that the Zip Mart was robbed, Dixon's body was found on the ground
along a logging road with six bullet wounds.

In a recent letter to The News & Observer, Brown wrote, "I am totally and
completely innocent."

Brown is hoping Gov. Mike Easley might grant him clemency or that a
federal appeals court might give him a reprieve based on his legal
challenge to the state's method of lethal injection.

In North Carolina, a condemned inmate is given a series of 3 drugs: one to
put him to sleep, another to paralyze him and a 3rd to stop his heart.

Brown's attorneys have been arguing that if the first drug doesn't work,
then Brown could experience an excruciating death, which would violate the
constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. However, victims'
advocates say there is justice in killers experiencing painful deaths.

A federal judge asked state officials to come up with a proposal to lessen
the chance that Brown is awake when the paralytic and heart-stopping drugs
are administered. State officials purchased a BIS monitor for $5,400 and
proposed having a doctor and nurse, who already will view a heart monitor
connected to the inmate, watch the BIS monitor.

"The BIS monitor will be located such that it can be observed and its
values read by both medical professionals," lawyers for the prison system
wrote in court filings.

The execution team will continue to give a barbiturate to the inmate until
the BIS monitor indicates that the inmate is adequately anesthetized,
according to court records.

As executions become more like medical procedures, Groner said he worries
that doctors will be asked to become more and more involved.

"Using medical technology to kill people is a dangerous road to go down
ethically," Groner said. "... It's hard to tell where exactly it will
end."

(source: The News & Observer)






USA:

Insanity-Based Defense Tested in High Court----Arizona argues that a
schizophrenic knew right from wrong and can be jailed for murder.


Ever since John W. Hinckley Jr. was acquitted on grounds of insanity in
the 1981 shooting of President Reagan, states have made it harder for
defendants to escape criminal punishment by claiming mental illness. But
on Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether some states may
have gone too far.

The case the justices took up involves Eric Michael Clark of Flagstaff,
Ariz. In June 2000, Clark, then 17, was behaving bizarrely and suffering
delusions when he drove his pickup through a neighborhood in the middle of
the night, blaring music. He had been recently discharged from a mental
hospital.

When a police officer responded to a complaint, Clark fatally shot him and
fled.

In 1993, Arizona had tightened its insanity law, saying mental illness or
"diminished capacity" was not a defense to a crime. A state judge
concluded that Clark was not insane because he had fled the crime scene,
indicating that he knew the slaying was wrong.

Clark was convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

"A state has the right to define insanity as it sees fit," Arizona state
attorney Randall M. Howe told the justices Wednesday. And under Arizona's
law, "evidence of mental disease" is not a legal excuse for a crime, he
said.

At issue for the Supreme Court is whether it is unconstitutional to
convict defendants of intentional murder if they were delusional during
the crime. Usually, prosecutors must prove that the defendant knowingly
and intentionally committed the crime.

"Eric was delusional and . he believed he was killing an alien," his
attorney, David Goldberg, told the justices. Goldberg argued that because
his client was paranoid and delusional, he lacked the necessary criminal
intent.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared to agree. "How has the state proved
this was an intentional killing of a police officer? The testimony showed
he did not think it was a police officer," she told the state's lawyer.

Several justices asked about space aliens. "Assume he [the defendant]
thinks it's right to kill Martians" and he kills a police officer he
believes is a space alien, said Justice John Paul Stevens. Can the state
execute such a person? he asked.

Probably not, the state's lawyer responded, because the defendant would be
judged insane. But lawyers for the state argued that Clark did not meet
the state's definition of insanity.

Although both sides in the case agreed that Clark had paranoid
schizophrenia, Howe said, "the heart of the [legal] test is knowing right
from wrong." Since Clark fled the scene and hid the murder weapon, he knew
his act was wrong, the state had argued.

After his arrest, Clark was judged not fit to stand trial. 3 years later,
however, he was well enough to be tried before a judge and was convicted.
His parents had argued their son should be locked up in a psychiatric
facility, not a prison.

If the high court were to rule that mentally disturbed people could be
held accountable as criminals, it would have a broad impact. But most of
the justices sounded skeptical of Clark's claim.

Most states strictly limit the insanity defense, Justice David H. Souter
said, and no longer permit "diminished capacity" as an excuse. Souter said
states wanted to strictly limit the notion of insanity because otherwise,
criminals and their lawyers would regularly cite mental problems as an
excuse.

"Is there anything unconstitutional about that?" he asked.

Goldberg said there was a long tradition in English and American law of
not prosecuting those who were insane and who did not understand the
nature and gravity of their crimes. At some times, the law said defendants
had to be of "sound mind" and had to have "malice aforethought" before
they could be convicted of 1st-degree murder.

For its part, the Supreme Court has not insisted that states give
defendants the right to plead insanity as a defense. And U.S. Solicitor
General Paul D. Clement urged the justices to maintain a hands-off
approach.

Arizona "did not want to have a diminished-capacity defense," and its
choice should be upheld, he said.

A ruling in the case of Clark vs. Arizona is expected by June.

(source: Los Angeles Times)