[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----LA., ARIZ., MO., ILL.

[Rick Halperin]

April 20


LOUISIANA:

Morgan Lewis Partners Get a Hollywood Ending


2 attorneys meet with their death row client at one of America's most
notorious prisons and tell him he's scheduled to die in the next month.
After more than a decade of fighting for his innocence, the appeals have
run out.

As they drive in silence across Louisiana to break the news to the
inmate's young son, one checks a voice mail.

There is an excited message from a private investigator, saying she's
found something big. The new evidence sets in place a series of events
that eventually lead to his exoneration.

This true story of 2 Morgan, Lewis & Bockius attorneys, partners Michael
Banks and J. Gordon Cooney Jr., is packed with enough dramatic tension to
fill a Hollywood screenplay.

Or so Disney believes.

Touchstone Pictures has made a deal for a film based on the Philadelphia
attorneys' 15-year pro bono crusade to overturn John Thompson's murder
conviction. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will star as the Morgan, Lewis duo.

In order to produce a movie depicting the events, Disney purchased the
life story rights for the attorneys and Thompson, a common yet quirky
legal transaction. Sellers -- and the lawyers who represent them -- must
tie the often messy details of a life story into a neat legal bundle.

"We're both flattered," Cooney said. "We were primarily interested in
generating money for John."

The lawyers got connected with Disney through producing team Amanda Stern
and Fred Bodner. Stern is a distant relative of Banks, and Cooney went to
school with Bodner.

Cooney and Banks wouldn't comment on the details of their negotiations
with Disney, but entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles say the process of
selling one's life story to a studio usually follows a similar trajectory.

Although there are always people who are convinced their life story needs
to be told on the silver screen, usually a studio or producer seeks out
the subject. Often, their interest comes from a nationally published news
story, or from someone who is already famous enough to drive box office
crowds. For example, Erin Brockovich's news-generating crusade against
Pacific Gas & Electric resulted in the feature film of the same name.

Once the parties connect, they usually negotiate an exclusive option to
buy the story while they figure out whether the movie will come together.
Sometimes, stories are so coveted that the rights may be purchased at the
onset.

The main lures in purchasing life story rights are exclusivity combined
with the ability to obtain richer details not otherwise available. The
characters can supply photographs, shed insight on events, and offer
details of conversations held behind closed doors.

"All you're really buying is someone's exclusive cooperation," said Joseph
Taylor, an entertainment partner at Liner Yankelevitz Sunshine &
Regenstreif. "It doesn't mean someone else can't tell your story."

It also protects against lawsuits that could arise if a party is
displeased.

Litigation can crop up when rights aren't purchased and subjects claim
they were portrayed in a false light, or the film has disclosed something
so private it deserves to be kept from the public.

"Unless something is defamatory or invading privacy or really shown in a
way that's not accurate, the complaints don't tend to go very far," said
Ann Loeb, a partner in Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan's entertainment
and media group.

Individuals who sell rights for a movie deal can reserve the rights for a
book -- though a studio may ask them to wait until the movie has been
released.

In general, the subject is free to do a certain amount of publicity, such
as appearing in news articles. But the contract will likely prohibit them
from discussing the movie.

Although the sale can bring in a chunk of cash, the dollar amount is
relative. The Morgan, Lewis lawyers declined to disclose their price.

"For a coal miner, it could be several years of income," said Robert
Darwell, the co-chairmen of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton's
entertainment and media group. "For a lawyer with a nice practice, it
could be not that meaningful."

At the higher end, W. Mark Felt, now better known as Deep Throat, has sold
the film and book rights to his life story to Universal Pictures and
PublicAffairs for close to $1 million.

In negotiations, it's important to specify the beginning and end points of
one's life story. You might not want to give away your entire life, said
Darwell, who works on about 25 options a year.

"These lawyers had this great case, but what if in 10 years from now, they
have another extraordinary case?" he said. "Should the studio own that,
too?"

When movie plans move forward, privacy is thrown out the window. The
subjects must share personal information such as diaries and notes. It's
also their job to make sure other ancillary characters such as relatives,
friends and co-workers cooperate. The studios will usually want to buy
rights from less than a handful of key figures, but they'll require
releases from dozens of others whose lives are somehow intertwined.

In some high-profile cases, such as the Amy Fisher story, the rights of
the central characters might be divided among various studios.

Once the subjects sign off, they often have little say on how the studios
develop their stories.

"They'll want to dramatize it, combine characters, fictionalize events and
change it," Darwell said, "Even the casting of the actors changes the tone
of it."

That's often a big concern for clients, said Patricia Mayer, a partner
with Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, who has represented both buyers and
sellers.

"Movies will outlast you -- if someone betrays you in a film, the image
the public has is going to be based on that film," she explained. "It's a
leap of faith to give someone else the right to make your personal life
story."

When Mayer receives cold calls from people interested in selling their
story, she offers a bit of advice: Don't sell if you want to control how
your story is told.

"If you want control, you should write an autobiography, op-ed piece or
even a poem," she said.

The majority of people who end up selling their life rights for a movie
fall into two categories, Mayer said: those who want to share with the
world an event that changed them, or those that want to share what they
perceive as a tragedy of the world.

For Cooney and Banks, the story appears to fit both -- a 15-year crusade
that not only changed their lives, but opened their eyes to flaws in the
judicial system, mismatched resources and the real need for a pro bono
commitment.

After working on the case since they were associates in 1988, the
acquittal was "the most incredible feeling you can imagine," Cooney said.
"It's the best feeling I have ever had as a lawyer, without question."

(source: The Recorder)






ARIZONA:

Mexico govt reintervenes in Padilla case


The Mexican government is renewing its effort to speak in court on behalf
of homicide suspect Miguel Padilla.

Mexico said Wednesday that a Blair County judge in February violated the
U.S. Constitution and 2 treaties by saying Mexico does not have status to
speak out or file court papers on Padillas behalf.

Attorney Michael P. OConnor of Tempe, Ariz., representing the Mexican
government, asked Judge Hiram A. Carpenter to reconsider his position.

Padilla faces charges of killing 3 Altoona men Aug. 28 at the United
Veterans Association on Union Avenue. Carpenter said the Mexican
government must contact public defender Donald E. Speice to address the
court about Padilla.

In a petition filed Wednesday, OConnor states that Carpenter violated the
Constitution, a 1942 consular treaty between the United States and Mexico
and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. He is requesting a
hearing on the issues.

Padilla remains in Blair County Prison and could be tried as early as
October.

Carpenter now has a plate full of issues to address before trial.

Speice has requested that the trial be moved to another county or an
out-of-county jury hear the case in Blair. Also, the attorney appointed to
represent Padilla in any death penalty phase, Ed Blanarik of Centre
County, is attacking the use of the death penalty.

OConnor said Mexico has spoken on behalf of Mexican nationals in criminal
courts in Arizona, California, Texas, New York, Virginia and Georgia.
OConnor said Padilla, after his arrest, was denied legal representation
for seven weeks until the Mexican government stepped in and filed a
petition on his behalf.

Citing the Vienna consular convention, OConnor said when a Mexican
national is arrested in the United States, the Mexican Consulate must be
informed.

A similar consular treaty between the United States and Mexico confirms
Mexicos right to assist and arrest nationals in court proceedings in the
United States, OConnor maintains.

OConnor cited an 1821 U.S. Supreme Court case that stated "the long and
universal usage of the courts of the United States has sanctioned the
exercise of this right and it is impossible that any evil or inconvenience
can flow from it."

He concluded, "Mexico has standing to raise and address issues under
international treaties and international law, which are relevant to the
protection of Miguel Angel Padilla.

"The government of Mexico respectfully asserts that Mexico has the
authority to assist Mexican nationals in many ways, including the right to
address this court directly for the purpose of protecting the rights of
Mexican nationals, such as Mr. Padilla, in any proceedings before or with
this court."

Padilla, who the federal government says is an illegal alien, is accused
of killing UVA club owner Alfred Mignogna Jr., club employee Fredrick
Rickabaugh Sr. and patron Stephen M. Heiss.

The shootings, it has been charged, came after Padilla and 2 friends were
denied entry into the UVA club.

(source: Altoona Mirror)






MISSOURI:

Missouri inmates' suit claims lethal injection is cruel


4 death row inmates filed a lawsuit in St. Louis on Wednesday claiming the
drug injections Missouri is expected to use to execute them are
unconstitutionally cruel.

The 4 convicted murderers filed a claim similar to one filed by convicted
murderer Timothy Johnson, who argued last year that Missouri's method of
execution created the possibility of a "painful and protracted death."

A federal judge dismissed Johnson's claim. Johnson, convicted of beating
and kicking his wife to death in St. Louis in 1989, was executed Aug. 31.

Still, legal challenges to the lethal injections abound. The U.S. Supreme
Court in January blocked the execution of a Florida inmate and agreed to
consider his claims that his execution by injection could cause him
excruciating pain.

On Tuesday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard
arguments in the case of a convicted murderer from the Kansas City area
who has challenged the state's injection as unconstitutional.

John Fougere, a spokesman for the Missouri attorney general's office, said
that 4 of the 5 men executed in the state last year filed similar
challenges, and the state won all 4 cases.

"We have successfully argued in the past, and will continue to do so, that
Missouri's method of execution through lethal injection is
constitutional," he said.

The 4 inmates bringing the new claim in U.S. District Court in St. Louis
include Reginald Clemons, who was convicted of being an accomplice in the
1991 murder of 2 young women on the old Chain of Rocks Bridge.

Also bringing the case is Jeffrey Ferguson, sentenced to death for the
murder of Kelli Hall. Hall was abducted in 1989 from a St. Charles service
station where she worked. Her body was found 13 days later.

The 3rd plaintiff is Roderick Nunley, convicted of raping and murdering a
15-year-old girl in the Kansas City area. The fourth inmate is Richard D.
Clay, who was convicted of the 1994 murder of a businessman in New Madrid.

The men say inmates put to death in Missouri could experience "the
horrifying terror of slowly being smothered to death" if one injection
does not render them sufficiently unconscious before a second drug is
administered.

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)






ILLINOIS:

Ryan's death penalty commutation stands despite new trial for murderer


The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that a man whose death sentence was
commuted to life in prison by then-Governor George Ryan can never been
sentenced to die again.

Richard Morris' 1995 conviction for murder, vehicular hijacking and
kidnapping was on appeal when Ryan commuted the sentences of everyone on
the state's death row in 2003. The Supreme Court later granted Morris a
new trial because he didn't have an effective lawyer.

Morris argued Ryan's commutation was a partial pardon that precluded a
death sentence at a new trial. The state contended that it only applied to
his initial conviction.

Ryan--what was convicted this week on sweeping federal corruption
charges--became the darling of the capital punishment abolition movement
when he cleared death row just before leaving office. He says in a brief
filed in Morris' case that he never intended any of those convicts to be
sentenced to death again.

(The case is People v. Morris. On the Net:
http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions)

(source: Associated Press)

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

TRIBUNE PROFILE: LOCKE BOWMAN----Lawyer's commitment no pose; Yoga-loving
legal director of MacArthur Justice Center is passionate but civil
believer in fighting for social equality


A yoga-practicing, vegetarian trial lawyer brings fierceness, humility and
dignity to the courtroom in his efforts to right wrongs done to people
others often neglect.

Locke Bowman's clients include Darrell Cannon, a prisoner allegedly
tortured into a false murder confession whose case is in federal and state
courts. Another is Corethian Bell, freed from a murder conviction that
kept him behind bars for 18 months until DNA implicated another man.

They also include witnesses who may not know their rights and are held for
days at Chicago police stations by cops probing crimes.

Those clients are lucky to have Bowman, 51, handling their cases.

Described as a passionate but always calm, civil presence in court, he was
named by his peers this year and last as one of the best constitutional
and civil rights attorneys in Illinois.

For more than 13 years, he has been legal director of the MacArthur
Justice Center, a non-profit, public-interest law firm that focuses on
criminal justice and celebrated its 20th anniversary in December.

But Bowman credits others, mentors and colleagues who helped him on the
civil rights front over the years, for his success.

"There are plenty of egomaniacs in this work, and ego takes the place of
monetary reward in progressive causes, but Locke's not like that," said
Joe Margulies, who has worked with Bowman at the Justice Center for about
two years. "He deserves a much bigger ego than he has."

Bowman's wife, Maud Lavin, said he is "uncharacteristically modest"
compared with classmates from their undergraduate days at Harvard
University. That, she said, was one trait that attracted her to
Bowman--for a 2nd time.

They dated in college for 3 years before going separate ways for about 2
decades. After respective divorces, Bowman and Lavin, an associate
professor of visual and critical studies at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago, reunited in 1996 and married a year later.

By then, Bowman had graduated from University of Chicago Law School,
fathered 2 sons and, in his career, turned his energy back to "helping
people," which attracted him to the law in the 1st place.

Fit, youthful and bespectacled, Bowman's appearance evokes images of both
a confident chief executive officer and a well-mannered parochial
schoolboy--complete with the occasional wry grin.

He gets up before sunrise and heads to a yoga studio. Then he goes to
work, crafting novel litigation, taking depositions, arguing cases and
working with his students at the University of Chicago, which the Justice
Center calls home.

By 1992, when Bowman became legal director, the Justice Center had become
a force in Illinois.

In its early years, the center challenged Illinois' death penalty law,
noting gaping disparities in its use, and helped free the wrongfully
convicted. It later sued gunmakers and distributors whose products were
used to commit murder.

The center continues to seek justice for Cannon and other inmates who are
alleged to have been tortured into confessions by former Chicago Police
Cmdr. Jon Burge.

After the center filed suit alleging cruel and unusual punishment at the
super-maximum security Tamms Correctional Center, an entire wing was
devoted to inmates with serious mental illnesses.

Bowman was a leader in the movement that helped persuade former Gov.
George Ryan to place a moratorium on executions and later commute the
sentences of all Death Row inmates. That moratorium still stands.

The Justice Center also has represented inmates alleged to have been
beaten by Cook County Jail guards.

Earlier this year, the Chicago Police Department agreed to tell witnesses
held at police stations they are free to leave, after the Justice Center
in a federal suit accused police of holding witnesses for days in
violation of the U.S. Constitution.

And, in a broadening of its reach, the center has fought to get court
access for U.S. government detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military base.

"We think about trying to do things that no one else would do, because of
institutional constraints, because of lack of time and money, because of
low probability of a successful outcome," Bowman said.

"And we hope that we look at things from the perspective of people who
would not otherwise have their voices heard."

George Davis, convicted of a 1991 murder, was among them. The Cook County
public defender had filed a motion arguing that an appeal sought by Davis
was "wholly frivolous."

Bowman went to court in 2000 to stop the excessive use of such motions.
Eventually, appeals cases were reassigned to the state.

Meanwhile, with Bowman's encouragement, another lawyer took Davis' case.
In 2004, he was set free.

"I really don't know what a miracle is like," Davis said, but being
released is "in that field."

Bowman likely wouldn't call it a miracle, but rather a case of "getting it
right," a phrase that peppers his conversation.

Getting it right was a lesson Bowman learned from his father, Locke Bowman
Jr., a retired Presbyterian minister who specialized in Christian
education.

"He is a very thoughtful, very ethical person, and expected people to, as
he would put it, act right," Bowman said. "He certainly had a profound
influence on me."

Others who influenced Bowman include U.S. District Judge Hubert Will, for
whom Bowman clerked after graduating from law school, and the late U. of
C. professor Norval Morris, a criminal justice reform advocate who taught
Bowman and later assisted the Justice Center.

Bowman's colleagues said he is creative in crafting litigation. "He can
think outside the box in a way I think this job particularly requires,"
said David Bradford, the Justice Center's founding attorney.

"He has a real passion for fairness and social justice," Bradford said. He
"acts out of conscience, both in his legal life and, from what I can see,
in his personal life."

Bowman's older son, Krister, 26, a product design engineer, said he has
"seen my dad get mad, but I've never heard him raise his voice." He is, he
said, "afraid to disappoint him," but "not afraid of him."

As an intern at the Justice Center in 2001, Krister Bowman said he was
surprised to see how "such a compassionate man at home" could take on a
different aura.

"It's just awesome to watch him in court," Krister said. "He's like a
machine. He performs."

Less than a year after Bowman took the reins at the Justice Center, it
moved from Niles to U. of C., where students help with research, arguments
and briefs. In June, the Justice Center will move to Northwestern
University Law School, where it will fall under the umbrella of the Bluhm
Legal Clinic.

Bowman, who walks with a cowboy-like lope, gets up in his South Loop town
home each workday morning at 5. Within 90 minutes, he's standing on his
mat at a yoga studio, where for two hours he practices Ashtanga yoga.

It involves a strenuous exercise routine "that is kind of a combination of
fierce and calm," said Lavin, noting it fits her husband's personality.

He keeps a stash of raw cashews and dried vegetarian soups in his office
to supplement whatever vegetarian fare he can find at the Law School cafe.

"My days vary greatly, depending on the needs of litigation, and the thing
about litigation is that it's unpredictable," he said.

"I hope everyday to interact in some way with my students. And it's a
disappointing day if I don't have that opportunity."

Bowman likes to cheer for his younger son, David, 18, a senior at
Roycemore School in Evanston, when he plays basketball and baseball.
Bowman also enjoys cooking.

He leads a relatively modest life, especially compared with others in his
profession. He drives a 2002 Volkswagen Passat, "the fanciest car I've
ever owned."

But his work, not material things, motivates him.

"I do it to be happy," he said of his work. "It's a great opportunity for
a person to have values and work coincide. Right? That's a wonderful,
wonderful opportunity. That's a huge psychic benefit."

(source: Chicago Tribune)