April 22 (in) UTAH: Ex-inmate relishes new life after death row ---- Freed by DNA test: He exhorts Utah defense lawyers to give cases their best There was a year and a half in prison isolation when Ray Krone never saw the sun. He was stabbed 4 times, suffered a broken arm, and contracted hepatitis C. At one point he accepted that he might die for the murder of a Phoenix woman he didn't commit. When DNA testing exonerated him 4 years ago, Krone became the 100th innocent former death row inmate freed since the reinstatement of capital punishment. Speaking at the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers annual seminar in Park City on Friday, Krone said the outcome could have easily been different. "Our system shouldn't be the luck of the draw - how good of an attorney you get, how good of a judge you get - but we all know that's what happens," he said. At the time of his arrest, Krone was a 35-year-old postal carrier who had been honorably discharged from the military with no criminal record. He had the support of friends, and a mother who mortgaged her home to help fight his conviction. Now 49, Krone is living on a Pennsylvania farm, has a girlfriend, and said he is enjoying seeing family members he was separated from for a decade. He has spoken to many organizations around the country - yet ironically he's never addressed a group of police or prosecutors. The lanky, energetic Krone called his speaking engagements "therapy, in a way" Friday. It's still emotionally exhausting for him to speak about the experience, he said. For now, he avoids involvement in individual cases. "I just don't have the emotional fortitude to do that," he said. "I don't want to set foot in a prison." Krone received the death penalty after a jury convicted him in 1992. He got a new trial in 1996, but a different jury convicted him based in large part on bite marks on the victim that supposedly matched Krone. Citing doubts about the conviction, the judge gave him life in prison. The passage of an Arizona law allowing for post-conviction DNA testing lead to Krone's release. DNA test results matched another man in prison, at the time for sex crimes, who had lived behind the bar where Kim Ancona was killed. Krone said he's been contacted by three or four jurors from his first trial following his exoneration. He's never received any apology from the prosecutor on his case, Krone said. Last year, the city of Phoenix settled a lawsuit filed by Krone for $3 million, and Maricopa County agreed to pay $1.4 million. Some 21 states have compensation laws allowing the wrongfully convicted to sue. A similar measure introduced earlier this year by state Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, died in the House. In Utah, the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center investigates claims of innocence from convicts in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Utah's 1st DNA-related release of an inmate came 2 years ago when Bruce Dallas Goodman left prison after serving nearly 2 decades - accused of the fatal beating of 21-year-old Salt Lake City resident Sherry Ann Fales. Krone urged Utah criminal defense attorneys gathered Friday to keep his case in mind. "That one time you want to take it a little easy . . . think this one might be Ray Krone." (source: Salt Lake Tribune) USA: Unpopularity brings wrongful convictions -- Character of defendants makes accusations, rush to judgment more likely In recent years, we have witnessed a disturbing number of instances in which convicted defendants have been conclusively proven to be innocent, frequently after spending years in prison, and in some cases even after having spent time on death row. North Carolina has not been immune from such occurrences as the wrongful convictions of Darryl Hunt (for murder), Ronald Cotten (rape) and Terrence Garner (robbery) so vividly attest. By examining the current Duke lacrosse controversy, we can understand how some of these wrongful convictions occur. I take no position on the guilt or innocence of any particular individual. Unlike some others in the community, I prefer to wait until the evidence is all in before making that call. But one thing is clear. These are unpopular defendants. If these folks are guilty of the kind of arrogant, boorish, racist and sexist behavior reported by the news media, they deserve to be unpopular. Nevertheless, unpopularity is a pretty good harbinger of a wrongful conviction. This is not to say that unpopular people don't commit crimes. They do. But they also get accused of crimes they don't commit, and their unpopularity tends to lead to a rush to judgment and an ultimate conviction. One of the best known historical cases, known as the "Scottsboro Case," involved 9 black teenagers almost certainly wrongly accused of raping 2 white women on a train headed for Scottsboro, Ala. Let us imagine that the Duke lacrosse case had arisen in an era before DNA evidence was developed. We have a young mother trying to work her way through college accusing 3 reputedly obnoxious young men of rape. The public communications among their group, and the general demeanor and reputation of their group, certainly suggests their capability of committing the alleged offenses. My guess is that a jury would think that they were probably guilty. Of course, that is not supposed to be enough. Juries are supposed to be convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed, some think that defense attorneys play this reasonable doubt card with disturbing frequency, thereby freeing lots of guilty people. Without question, this has happened. But I am not convinced that juries always, or even usually, take reasonable doubt seriously. When a person is killed, a woman is (or is believed to be) raped, or a child is (or is believed to be) molested, I'm not sure that a jury that believes the defendant probably did it is likely to give him the benefit of a reasonable doubt. We say that it is better that 10 guilty people go free than one innocent person be convicted, but I am not sure we really believe it when as a juror, we would have to let a probably guilty murderer, rapist or child molester walk the streets. Indeed, I am convinced that a fairly large number of people have been convicted of heinous crimes because they just seemed guilty, rather than that the evidence proved them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Jeffrey McDonald and Michael Peterson are two fairly prominent cases that some believe fall into this category. One might hope that most of these people were in fact guilty, but we really have no way of knowing. What can we do to prevent this? For one thing, we should be wary of identification evidence, particularly cross-racial stranger identification. In the lacrosse case, for example, originally all 46 white lacrosse players were tested for DNA, evidently because the victim was certain only of the race of her alleged attackers. Now that none of the players' DNA has been found in or on her, she is reported to have made an identification. How sure can we be of that identification? Is it not possible that her rapists (assuming the rape happened) were non-lacrosse players who happened to be present at the party? Certainly in other cases -- the aforementioned Cotten and Garner, among others -- eyewitness misidentification has led to wrongful convictions. Of course, it is my fondest hope that these defendants will not be wrongly convicted (I'd like them to be either rightly convicted if guilty or rightly acquitted if innocent). But we must recognize that wrongful convictions do happen. Because they do, we need to seriously rethink some of our procedures. We should not, for example, deny parole to people who refuse to apologize for a crime they claim to have not committed. Jeffrey McDonald, for example, could have long since been paroled if only he would apologize for a crime that he says he didn't commit. Finally, since we now know that we convict innocent people, we should think very long and very hard about retaining the death penalty. (source: Charlotte Observer (Arnold H. Loewy is Graham Kenan Professor of Law at UNC School of Law) ********************** New Government Web Site Promotes DNA Technology to "Protect the Innocent" "Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology" offers a new resource from the President's DNA Initiative. The Web site, www.dna.gov, includes resources on DNA testing, trainings, and funding, and a history of forensic use of DNA. In one section, "Exonerated by Science," the site provides overviews of cases in which DNA has played a significant role in freeing defendants who have been wrongly convicted, including some who were exonerated from death row. The program's goal is to ensure that DNA technology reaches its full potential to solve crimes, protect the innocent, and identify missing persons. See the President's DNA Initiative Web page: http://www.dna.gov/info/ (source: Death Penalty Information Center) *********************** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RED NATION WEB TELEVISION CHANNEL THE FIRST AMERICAN INDIAN CHANNEL FEATURING ALL AMERICAN INDIAN PROGRAMMING SET TO MAKE ITS NATIONWIDE DEBUT ON MAY 1, 2006 Red Nation Web Television Channel, is slated to make its nationwide debut on May 1, 2006, says Joanelle Romero, founder and creative director of the new web channel. "Our aim is to make this year, 2006, the year the American Indian emerges on national web television. Our continuing efforts should make the industry and the public aware that it's time to further broaden knowledge and cultural diversity on TV...time to THINK INDIAN." This is the first American Indian web television channel promoting America Indian films, music videos, documentaries (long and short forms) pilots, drama series, music specials and commercials. Romero declares. "I simply got ti red of being told NO when I proposed this idea to the industry and I, and others, got together and decided that it was time for us, RED NATION as individuals and as an organization, to do something about it." Joanelle Romero, humanitarian, actress, producer/director and activist, is spearheading this ground-breaking project. Apache, Cheyenne and Jewish descent, Romero starred in the first American Indian woman's story ever produced for TV. Made for CBS in 1977, A GIRL CALLED HATTER FOX brought a lot of attention to contemporary Indian problems. Later in her career, Romero directed the first American Indian Award Winning Holocaust film, AMERICAN HOLOCAUST: WHEN ITS ALL OVER I'LL STILL BE INDIAN. The new American Indian Red Nation Web Channel is all about airing quality American Indian entertainment. It will draw from the vast pool of American Indian filmmakers, actors, producers and other entertainment entities to bring best of the work created by these members of the industry to the forefront and to audiences who can appreciate and enjoy their projects. In building its place in show business, Red Nation Web Television intends to compete with all other networks in creating a bankable market in support of American Indian talents, and instill an image of a heritage that was and is still so important to the development of our country's heritage and growth. The initial offering on the Red Nation Web Channel will be the first produced in the U.S. American Indian drama series HOME, HOME ON THE REZ, starring Larry Sellers, Joanelle Romero, Elaine Miles, Elizabeth Sage and Conroy Chino. It will air on May 1, 2006 on www.rednation.com. Produced in association with Spirit World Productions., it will be followed by an ever-growing agenda of top quality entertainment using all native casting and production as did the popular BILL COSBY television series. The Red Nation Web Television Channel hopes to reach millions of viewers and to develop future productions through the organization's family company the Red Nation Media Entertainment Company. "In this day and age, to have the American Indian's contemporary image on web/tv is more important than any other time in history, not only for economic status, but to make a giant step forward for our generation and for generations to come. We are aiming for a slow but steady growth in this unique endeavor but we believe in our ventures limitless possibilities," says Romero. MEDIA ALERT: On MAY 1, 2006, watch for the debut of RED NATION WEB TELEVISION CHANNEL. JOANELLE ROMERO is also founder of Award-winning Spirit World Productions, the Annual Red Nation Celebration Concert Series, the Annual Native Women In Music, Red Nation Records, the Annual Warriors Against AIDS Awareness Concert and the Annual Red Nation Film Festival (the first and only American Film Festival held during Indigenous Nations Heritage Month in Los Angeles). (source: RedNation.com) ILLINOIS: The Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Community Leaders and Victims of Police Torture Hold Press Conference, Protest Who: Congressman Danny Davis; Greta Holmes, Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Larry Kennon, an attorney and petitioner for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor; Rev. Calvin Morris, Community Renewal Society; Madison Hobley, police torture victim and pardoned death row inmate. What: Following a press conference, a delegation will present an open letter to Special Prosecutor Edward Egan calling on him to indict Jon Burge and other current and former police officers, who civil rights attorneys claim were involved in the torture of more than 135 suspects. When: Monday, April 24, 2006, Noon Where: Special Prosecutors Office, 221 N. LaSalle, Chicago. 4 years after the appointment of Special Prosecutor Edward Egan to investigate police torture under Former Commander Jon Burge, community leaders will hold a press conference to demand indictments against those responsible for torture. They will then lead a delegation to deliver an open letter to Egans office (see attached). "Torture is happening in our very own back yard. For years, Jon Burge systematically tortured African American men in police stations on the South Side of Chicago. You dont have to believe me. The Office of Professional Standards (OPS) the Chicago polices own investigatory agency found that physical abuse did occur and that it was systematic. Yet many of Burges victims remain behind bars. Without a doubt, they deserve new trials. My question is, why isnt Jon Burge doing time?" said Alice Kim, National Organizer of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Special Prosecutor Edward Egan was assigned April 24, 2002 to investigate allegations of police torture under Burge and his detectives, who used techniques such as electroshock, Russian roulette and suffocation to extract false confessions from as many as 135 African American men on the South Side of Chicago while in police custody. Some of the torture victims, known as the Death Row 10, were sentenced to death, while many others still are serving long prison terms. Madison Hobley, one of the Death Row 10, was pardoned based on innocence by former Governor Ryan in 2003. He will participate in the press conference Monday. "I spent 13 years on death row because of corrupt and racist police officers. I just hope the Special Prosecutor does the right thing," he said. Sources such as U.S. District Court judge Milton Shadur, who presided over the evidentiary hearing for death row inmate Andrew Maxwell, have acknowledged that torture under Jon Burge was systematic. Shadur wrote: "It is now common knowledge that in the early to mid-1980s Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and many officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions." Nevertheless, neither Burge nor any of the officers working under him have faced prosecution, and Burge, fired in 1993, still collects a full pension. An open letter to Special Prosecutor Edward Egan, assigned to investigate allegations of Chicago police torture, from leaders of community organizations, prisoners and their family members. Dear Mr. Egan: 4 years ago today, you were appointed to investigate more than 100 cases of torture at the hands of police officers under former Commander Jon Burge. Many of us represent organizations that campaigned for your appointment, which we believed to be a moment of great hope for victims of torture and their family members, who had waited as long as 20 years for justice. Now, for many, hope has turned to anxiety as the fate of their loved ones remains unknown. We hope you share our concerns that it is unconscionable for those guilty of systematic torture to remain free while their victims remain imprisoned on the basis of false confessions. We also would remind you of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote in his famous letter from Birmingham Jail that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." You have a unique opportunity to make your mark upon history. The Death Row 10 (police torture victims who were sent to death row), as well as all the other torture victims, have suffered great civil liberties violations at the hands of Jon Burge and his underlings. For over 30 years, there has been a band of corrupt Chicago police detectives who not only have freely kidnapped and tortured Cook County citizens into signing false confessions, but have committed these illegal acts with the comfort of their cover-up by the Cook County State's Attorney's office. We call on you to finally administer justice by publicly condemning their torturous acts and to allow the victims of these police officers to finally regain their freedom and their lives. We hope you will do the right thing with your investigation -- name the officers involved -- and name the judges and States attorneys who knew the police officers were using torture. Expose the police criminal code of silence and expose those government officials who have consistently turned their heads from the injustices that so many have suffered. We believe that your report should expose the connection of the police torture scandal to low and high-ranking officials throughout Cook County's criminal justice system, because it is our belief that the scandal could not have taken place without the knowledge, help and cover-up by many prosecutors, judges and members of the Chicago Police Department. Bring the perpetrators of these acts to justice. The perpetrators should be punished and the victims deserve freedom or new trials. Encourage the civil court judges to help Stanley Howard, Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson and Leroy Orange to finally win compensation for the years they spent innocently on death row. (source: PRWeb) *************************** New police lineups falter----Witness accuracy found to decrease An experimental overhaul of the way in which police conduct suspect lineups has actually lowered the effectiveness of eyewitness identifications, according to a Chicago police-led review of the new method. The yearlong review, released a few weeks ago, found that in most circumstances, witnesses who look at suspects one at a time instead of all at once are less able to pick out a suspect and more likely to pick the wrong person. That finding contradicts some previous studies and has intensified a debate between law enforcement leaders skeptical of the new method and researchers who believe traditional lineups pose a risk of police leading witnesses to pick their intended suspect. Police in Illinois started using the new method, called "sequential double-blind identification," following several years of revelations about wrongful convictions, many of them based on witness identifications. The study reviewed a pilot program using the new method in Chicago, Joliet and Evanston and was carried out in 700 lineups by 476 police officers trained in late 2004. The study, authored by the chief counsel to Chicago Police Supt. Philip Cline, found that the new method is less likely to identify the suspect than the traditional method of having detectives working the case ask a witness to pick the suspect from several people at once. The sequential double-blind method was less effective in instances in which witnesses were children or elderly, when the race of the suspects and witnesses was different, when there were multiple suspects, or the suspects' appearance had changed since the incident, wrote Sheri Mecklenburg, Cline's chief counsel. The study has questioned not just which lineup method is best, but the value of eyewitness identifications in general. Loyola University Law School hosted a symposium on the issue Friday to discuss the lineup issue. Several experts said the study proves that more research and field testing is needed. U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said the results of the study were surprising but the fact that sequential lineups in the Illinois study misidentified a higher rate of suspects raises more questions than it answers. "We need to work backwards and find out why that is," he said. Former U.S. Atty. Thomas Sullivan, who co-chaired former Gov. George Ryan's Commission on Capital Punishment in Illinois, criticized the report's methodology because police did not uniformly adopt the "double-blind" method of having the officer conducting the lineup be unaware of which person was the suspect. "Human memory is simply not videotape. Human memory is trace evidence," said James Doyle, a defense lawyer and expert on eyewitness identification. (source: Chicago Tribune) NEW YORK: Group does a world of good The residents and caretakers of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, in the East Village, don't care if St. Egidio's name does not appear in any book of Catholic saints - the good works done in his name are what counts. It turns out that the 25 or so members of the Community of St. Egidio, who volunteer twice a week at the center, are rather casual about the name, too. "Every now and then someone asks about Egidio," said Andrea Bartoli, founder the New York chapter in 1992 with his wife, Paola Piscitelli. "I tell them he was a Greek nobleman who lived in southern France." Church archives fill in the details. Aegidius was reportedly born in Athens in 683 A.D. and as a young man moved to France, where he became a hermit, a healer and the abbot of a monastery, and where he died in the early 8th century. Because he settled in the village of Saint-Gilles, he became known as Giles and was canonized by that name in the Middle Ages. St. Giles is now one of western Europe's most venerated saints. The New York chapter is part of a worldwide Catholic movement that began in 1968 in Rome, naming itself after the small church where the group first met. The movement is dedicated to ecumenical dialogue, peace, justice and service to the poor. To many, it is best known for its campaigns against the death penalty and for an annual assembly of world spiritual leaders who exchange views and pray. "Not many Americans know about us," said Mario Marazziti, international spokesman for the movement, during a visit to New York this week. But if everything goes according to plan, that could change shortly. Marazziti's group is 1 of the 4 organizers of a 3-day forum called the International Prayer for Peace, which begins Wednesday at Georgetown University in Washington. In religious circles, it is a big deal. The first Prayer for Peace was held in 1986 in Assisi with Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama and other world spiritual leaders praying together. After 20 years of meetings in Europe, the community decided it was time to bring the ecumenical extravaganza to the United States. Georgetown offered to host it and is helping to coordinate it, along with the Catholic archdiocese of Washington and Catholic University. There is no papal presence this time, and no Dalai Lama, but there is an impressive lineup of spiritual heavyweights - rabbis, imams, cardinals, Orthodox Christian bishops, ministers from a dozen or so mainline and evangelical Protestant churches, and Hindu, Shinto and other clergy. In all, 80 speakers are scheduled to discuss religion, along with terrorism, poverty, AIDS and other contemporary hot-button issues. The Community of St. Egidio, which the Vatican recognizes as an international lay association, had a powerful ally in John Paul II, and after his death last April, there were fears that his successor, Pope Benedict, might not support it as enthusiastically. A few months after his election, though, the new Pope eased some of the worries when he met with representatives of St. Egidio and 28 other lay associations. At last count, the Vatican recognized 129 lay associations - among them, Opus Dei, Focolare, Regnum Christi, and Communion and Liberation. Some associations count membership by the tens of thousands and operate around the globe. According to its latest figures, St. Egidio has about 50,000 adherents in 2,000 chapters in 70 countries, with Italy claiming by far the largest following. In the United States, there are about 150 members, Marazziti said. "Perhaps after next week, we will grow," he said. In most local chapters, members work full-time - for example, Bartoli oversees Columbia University's Center for International Conflict Resolution - and serve as volunteers working on behalf of the causes they adopt. The New York community adopted the Cabrini Center a dozen years ago, and now spends 2 days every week there. It also holds a special prayer service every Friday night at the Church of St. Joseph, in Greenwich Village, its unofficial base. "There are many things more we want to do," Bartoli said this week, "and when we have more members, we will do them." (source: New York Daily News)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----UTAH, USA, ILL., N.Y.
Rick Halperin Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:13:41 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
